# Das passt wunderbar zu Serenas samtschwarzem Haar / zu Serenas samtschwarzen Haaren.



## j-Adore

Das passt wunderbar zu Serenas samtschwarzem *Haar*.

Das passt wunderbar zu Serenas samtschwarzen *Haaren*.


Not sure if the noun should be in the singular or the plural in this instance.

And am I correct in thinking that "samtschwarz" should take strong inflection instead of mixed?


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## elroy

j-Adore said:


> Das passt wunderbar zu Serenas samtschwarzen *Haaren*.


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## Frank78

Both are possible. The entity of one's head hair can be treated as singular or plural.


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## Demiurg

"Haar" (sing.) is somewhat elevated style and typical for literature, "Haare" (plur.) is more common in everyday language.


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## Kajjo

Yes, both singular and plural are possible and I agree with Demiurg's guideline.


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## berndf

Demiurg said:


> "Haar" (sing.) is somewhat elevated style and typical for literature, "Haare" (plur.) is more common in everyday language.


While I agree with this statement, I think we can be a bit more specific: educated and literary registers apply a difference in meaning between the two sentences: the form in singular applies to the appearance of her hair and hair style as a whole while plural refers to her hairs separately. In this case it doesn't make much of a difference but there are other cases when this semantic difference matters. E.g. the following are very different statements:
_Sie hat dünnes Haar.
Sie hat dünne Haare._

Colloquial registers tend not to apply this difference and restrict the singular to a single, individual hair and use plural for both, the collective and individual plurals. The semantic distinction elevated style makes is rarely missed in colloquial speech situations.


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## elroy

berndf said:


> the following are very different statements:
> _Sie hat dünnes Haar.
> Sie hat dünne Haare._


 What is the difference?


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## berndf

The first sentence means that her hair is sparse while the second refers to the physical width of each individual hair, irrespective of if her hair is sparse or dense.


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## elroy

Thanks!  I misread your last post, so I thought you had a different distinction in mind.

By the way, we say “thin” and “thick” in (American) English (at least I’ve never heard anything else).


berndf said:


> the second refers to the physical width of each individual hair, irrespective of if her hair is sparse or dense.


 I don’t see how your hair as a whole can be thick if your individual hairs are thin.  Maybe I don’t know enough about hair.


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## JClaudeK

j-Adore said:


> And am I correct in thinking that "samtschwarz" should take strong inflection  instead of mixed?


Yes, but why "should"?  The strong inflection _does apply_ here:
zu samtschwarze*m* Haar
zu samtschwarze*n* Haaren

As for _Haare_ or _Haar: _It's more or less the same difference as "cheveux - chevelure"


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## berndf

elroy said:


> By the way, we say “thin” and “thick” in (American) English (at least I’ve never heard anything else).
> I don’t see how your hair as a whole can be thick if your individual hairs are thin.  Maybe I don’t know enough about hair.


As I said, in the first sentence _dünn_ means _sparse_ [and not _thin_].


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## JClaudeK

@elroy


berndf said:


> Sie hat dünnes Haar.


= sie hat spärliches Haar

cf.:


> er hatte einen spärlichen                            (= dünnen) Bart - a sparse beard


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## elroy

Okay.  I’ve never heard “sparse hair” in English.  I think I know what you mean, though.


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## Hutschi

j-Adore said:


> Das passt wunderbar zu Serenas samtschwarzem *Haar*.
> 
> Das passt wunderbar zu Serenas samtschwarzen *Haaren*.
> 
> 
> Not sure if the noun should be in the singular or the plural in this instance.
> 
> And am I correct in thinking that "samtschwarz" should take strong inflection instead of mixed?



This has elevated and poetical style due to "samtschwarz".
And it means fashion, rather than an amount of single hairs.

I would prefer the first sentence.
Here "Haar" means "Haarschopf".

The second sentence is possible, too. It means the whole set/amount of her hair in both sentences if no context is given and changes it.


---

This is without extra context and how I understand the sentence.

But there is more:

The first sentence also fits grammatically to:

Sie hat nur noch ein Haar, alle anderen sind ausgefallen.  Sie trägt ein weißes Käppi. Das passt wunderbar zu ihrem samtschwarzen Haar. (This is ironic style, of course.)

Ein Teil ihrer Haare ist samtschwarz, den Rest hat sie sich grün gefärbt. Das weiße Käppi passt wunderbar zu ihren samtschwarzen Haaren. Aber zu den grünen? (Also ironically)

In these sentences you cannot exchange the number.

I constructed the sentence to show that context can change it. But the wording of the original sentence is so that with 99% probability the meaning is her whole hair in sense of fashion.


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## Hutschi

PS: see also in our forum:

Haar / Haare (in German)
das Haar/die Haare (in German)
sich das Haar/die Haare waschen (in English)
Haar / Haare (in German)

There are more threads to this topic. Maybe it helps to see it with other context, too.


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## j-Adore

Hutschi said:


> This has elevated and poetical style due to "samtschwarz".



Do you mean the adjective "samtschwarz" itself is not usually used informally? If so, how about "zu Serenas *rabenschwarzem *Haar"?


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## Frank78

j-Adore said:


> Do you mean the adjective "samtschwarz" itself is not usually used informally? If so, how about "zu Serenas *rabenschwarzem *Haar"?



Velvet is normally not associated with a certain colour. If being forced to do so I'd rather think of dark reddish colours when hearing velvet.

"Rabenschwarz" and "pechschwarz" (pitch black) are common. Although it would still be slightly elevated style.


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## Kajjo

j-Adore said:


> Do you mean the adjective "samtschwarz" itself is not usually used informally?


Yes, because velvet ist not typically black but can have any color. 

If something is described as "like velvet", I immediately think about how it feels -- not about how it looks. Velvet feels very soft and supple and is dense and full.  "Samtschwarz" might try to make us think about such a velvety texture, e.g. soft and dense. However, the combination is weird. A enumeration like "samtig und schwarz" might combine texture and color, but in "samtschwarz" the "samt"-part describes the "schwarz" and that does not really fit. On the other, the poet's license allows it. The word itself sound nice and most readers will just take it as it is.



j-Adore said:


> If so, how about "zu Serenas *rabenschwarzem *Haar"?


Yes, "rabenschwarz" works fine. However, ravens cause certain associations that should be considered (prophetic, mythic).

Other common compounds with "schwarz" are _pechschwarz, tiefschwarz, nachtschwarz_. "Pechschwarz" would fit, it's the most poetic here. "Tiefschwarz" is very neutral and focuses on the color (my personal preference here).


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## JClaudeK

Kajjo said:


> Velvet feels very soft and supple and is dense and full. "Samtschwarz" might try to make us think about such a velvety texture, e.g. soft and dense. However, the combination is weird.


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## j-Adore

@Kajjo Ah, so it must be more like "silky black hair".


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## Kajjo

j-Adore said:


> Ah, so it must be more like "silky black hair".


_Seidig-weiches, schwarzes Haar... _aber bitte kein Samt.


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## berndf

Kajjo said:


> _Seidig-weiches, schwarzes Haar... _aber bitte kein Samt.


Was stimmt mit _samtig weich_ denn nicht?


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## Kajjo

berndf said:


> Was stimmt mit _samtig weich_ denn nicht?


Zunächst mal geht es ja um _samtschwarz _und das ist genauso ungewöhnlich wie _seidigschwarz. _Ich schätze, da sind wir uns einig.

Samtig weich gibt es natürlich schon, z.B. bei Handtüchern, Pullovern oder dergleichen. Aber bei Haar? Sprachlich möglich, aber inhaltlich das falsche Word. Haare können seidig sein, aber doch nicht samtig, oder?


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## berndf

Ich kann mir unter beidem etwas vorstellen und beides hört und liest man auch. Der Unterschied wäre für mich im Aussehen: _seidig_ ist glänzend und _samtig_ ist matt.


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## Thersites

j-Adore said:


> If so, how about "zu Serenas *rabenschwarzem *Haar"?


Davon würde ich abraten. Das ist für mich negativ konnotiert im Sinne von _rabenschwarzen Aussichten_.


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