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?
Villago Delenda Est
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.
Baud
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?
Pogonip
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.
Pogonip
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!”
Fergus Wooster
“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
Keith P
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.
dmsilev
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.
Cassidy
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.
Villago Delenda Est
@Pogonip:
“Wow, this Ausfahrt place is HUGE!”
Bill D.
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*
Warren Terra
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.
J.Ty
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.
Amir Khalid
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.
RSA
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].
J.Ty
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”…
Anne Laurie
@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!
RobNYNY1957
@J.Ty:
“Backe” meanc “cheek.” “Pfeife” might be a form of “Feige,” which means “slap.”
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Cherokee is another of those languages where you can make add-on words:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_language#Word_creation
Origuy
@Amir Khalid:
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.
J.Ty
@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…?)
J.Ty
@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.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
Limbaugh
Paul in KY
I used to get schottenfreude when Marge Schott would say something stupid/racist. Which was quite often.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Incestenfakingfreud?