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You are here: Home / Books / Sunday Evening Open Thread: Words We Can Use

Sunday Evening Open Thread: Words We Can Use

by Anne Laurie|  February 16, 20148:27 pm| 24 Comments

This post is in: Books, Open Threads

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A reading recommendation, in the New Yorker, from Sarah Larson:

… Ben Schott’s wonderful book “Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition,” which came out last year, and which I did not expect to enjoy as much as I do… “Schottenfreude” begins with a quote by Charles Follen, from “A Practical Grammar of the German Language”: “The German language is sufficiently copious and productive, to furnish native words for any idea that can be expressed at all.” This proves to be true. An example:

Deppenfahrerbeäugung
Dep-pen-fahr-er – beh-oy-goong
The urge to turn and glare at a bad driver you’ve just overtaken.
MORON-DRIVER-EYEBALLING …

And on that note, what’s on the agenda as we (or those of us who don’t get tomorrow’s holiday off) wrap up the weekend?

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Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 16, 2014 at 8:32 pm

    One does this (Deppenfahrerbeäugung) on the Autobahn when driving a Porsche and passing some slow moving (only driving at 120km/h) Ami in a Chevrolet who just moved out of the fast lane (required…if you’re rear ended in the fast lane, you’re in the WRONG) to let you by.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    February 16, 2014 at 8:34 pm

    I was watching the Olympics, and there is apparently a brother-sister ice dancing team from another country. The female NBC announcer (can’t recall her name) noted what a difficult situation that was since it’s hard to project sexuality with your sibling.

    What’s the German word for that?

  3. 3.

    Pogonip

    February 16, 2014 at 8:34 pm

    I have been dragging around all weekend. I don’t know if it’s that seasonal depression one hears about, or what, but I can barely stay awake. I do get tomorrow off and I see the dr so I will find out then, although if it’s the seasonal thing I don’t know what he might be able to do other than prescribe spring.

  4. 4.

    Pogonip

    February 16, 2014 at 8:39 pm

    P.s. my uncle was stationed in Germany long enough to mingle with the locals and become fluent in the language. The German for “Have a good trip!” is “Guten fart!”, and he was always mightily tempted to reply “I’ve never had a bad one!”

  5. 5.

    Fergus Wooster

    February 16, 2014 at 8:39 pm

    “Odd how I can hate you and feel sorry for you at the same time. I’m sure the Germans have a word for it.” – Lisa Simpson

  6. 6.

    Keith P

    February 16, 2014 at 8:40 pm

    Having some chicken n rice with some veggies sautéed in duck fat. Should have that finished up right when True Detective starts. I’m expecting to finally see Reggie LaDoux for more than a few seconds this time.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    February 16, 2014 at 8:42 pm

    Looking at that strange ‘do you have these symptoms’ ad that seems to be all over the place, it seems like one of the unlabeled symptoms of this dread disease (whatever it is) appears to be elf-ear.

  8. 8.

    Cassidy

    February 16, 2014 at 8:43 pm

    I’m gonna have a few drinks and hope to trade the goodwill I’ve made from making dinner for a little sexytime. Then again, I gotta work tomorrow and have to get up early. Decisions, decisions.

  9. 9.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 16, 2014 at 8:56 pm

    @Pogonip:

    “Wow, this Ausfahrt place is HUGE!”

  10. 10.

    Bill D.

    February 16, 2014 at 9:01 pm

    Three lanes to choose from, wide open up ahead in the fast lane, must be a good place to drive 10 miles under the limit in the fast lane, at least according to one driver I passed today. Unfortunately, I was two lanes over due to someone else passing her at the same time, so I couldn’t effectively glare at her.

    It’s the old phenomenon I’ve observed again and again, of drivers in constrained traffic continuing their modest speed even after things open up and they could go almost any speed they want to (cops willing). I think it’s a kind of autopilot, with the higher functions of the brain disengaged. One time after a normal commute backup was left behind, three drivers blocked all three lanes at 50 miles per hour until a fourth lane joined, at which point they all speeded up to 70-75 now that it was finally possible to get around them. I was too nice to honk or flash lights while in the fast lane being held up at 15 miles under the speed limit. *Must learn to be more assertive*

  11. 11.

    Warren Terra

    February 16, 2014 at 9:04 pm

    Never actually seen a copy (just heard some of John Lloyd’s innumerable interviews in the last year, the thirtieth anniversary), but The Meaning Of Liff seems relevant.

  12. 12.

    J.Ty

    February 16, 2014 at 9:07 pm

    For those who are interested in this sort of thing, you can wrap the night up with this, an excellent take-down of Sam Harris’s newest work on how free will doesn’t exist by Daniel Dennett, proving once again that you do not tug on Superman’s cape.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    February 16, 2014 at 9:09 pm

    Ah, the joys of the German compound noun. Look up Twain’s famous essay, The Awful German Language: German has a whole host of other delights like a complex case system (all but withered away in English) super-duper extra long adjectival phrases, arbitrary genders on nouns, the separable verb. I’m having fun learning it.

  14. 14.

    RSA

    February 16, 2014 at 9:11 pm

    Deppenfahrerbeäugung

    I’ve forgotten more German than I know now, but from the time I lived in Germany I recall that Depp is Bavarian slang for a stupid person. The nice thing about German is that you can often figure out the meaning of long words from their components (which typically have German roots, rather than the Latin and Greek and so forth we see in English): Depp (with en being a plural, maybe) + Fahrer (driver) + Auge (eye) turned into a verb [ETA: Oops, a gerund, or whatever a nounified verb is in German].

  15. 15.

    J.Ty

    February 16, 2014 at 9:16 pm

    Let us also not forget the Backpfeifengesicht, a face that just makes you want to slap it. Although I can’t for the life of me figure out why “Backpfeife” means “slap in the face”…

  16. 16.

    Anne Laurie

    February 16, 2014 at 9:27 pm

    @Warren Terra: Hah, I have a copy of The Meaning of Liff… might even be a first edition, since I bought it off the stands in the mid-80s!

  17. 17.

    RobNYNY1957

    February 16, 2014 at 9:55 pm

    @J.Ty:

    “Backe” meanc “cheek.” “Pfeife” might be a form of “Feige,” which means “slap.”

  18. 18.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    February 16, 2014 at 10:20 pm

    Cherokee is another of those languages where you can make add-on words:

    Due to the polysynthetic nature of the Cherokee language, new and descriptive words in Cherokee are easily constructed to reflect or express modern concepts. Some good examples are ditiyohihi which means “he argues repeatedly and on purpose with a purpose.” This is the Cherokee word for “attorney.” Another example is didaniyisgi which means “the final catcher” or “he catches them finally and conclusively.” This is the Cherokee word for “policeman.”…

    Many other words were adopted from the languages of tribes who settled in Oklahoma in the early 1900s. One interesting and humorous example is the name of Nowata, Oklahoma. The word nowata is a Delaware word for “welcome” (more precisely the Delaware word is nuwita which can mean “welcome” or “friend” in the Delaware language). The white settlers of the area used the name “nowata” for the township, and local Cherokees, being unaware the word had its origins in the Delaware language, called the town Amadikanigvnagvna which means “the water is all gone gone from here” – i.e. “no water.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_language#Word_creation

  19. 19.

    Origuy

    February 16, 2014 at 10:32 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    complex case system (all but withered away in English)

    The prevailing theory, as I understand it, is that Old English’s case system disappeared with exposure to Danish. The two languages were similar enough in vocabulary that a creole developed in the Danelaw that dropped off the inflections. Since very little was written in English after 1066 for about 200 years, there’s not much recorded that shows this. Middle English is based on the Mercian dialect of OE, while West Saxon was the standard dialect for written OE.

  20. 20.

    J.Ty

    February 16, 2014 at 11:18 pm

    @RobNYNY1957: Thanks! The high german consonant shift might account for the latter, and I guess the ‘e’ just went missing.

    (You know who else wanted to reform German spelling…?)

  21. 21.

    J.Ty

    February 16, 2014 at 11:23 pm

    @Origuy: A lot of ME was inspired by the lower Scandinavian/western Germanic languages, IIRC. One of the reasons the word ‘egg’ is the way it is is because the phonetic trends were pointing towards a sound like ‘uh’, which is a stupid word for an important noun, so the Norwegian (Dutch? College was a while back) ‘egg’ won out.

  22. 22.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 17, 2014 at 12:43 am

    @Baud:

    it’s hard to project sexuality with your sibling.

    What’s the German word for that?

    Limbaugh

  23. 23.

    Paul in KY

    February 17, 2014 at 1:29 pm

    I used to get schottenfreude when Marge Schott would say something stupid/racist. Which was quite often.

  24. 24.

    Paul in KY

    February 17, 2014 at 1:31 pm

    @Baud: Incestenfakingfreud?

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