Word of the Month: Der Zweisiedler, die Zweisiedlerin

Word of the Month: Index

For the first time, I'm introducing a WoM that does not appear in the Duden, the official dictionary of the German language—it's an invention of mine, triggered by the life my wife and I have been living during the current pandemic. The term is formed after Einsiedler, the German word for a hermit, which consists of the components ein (one) and Siedler (settler): It's a "one-settler", a person living by himself in almost complete isolation. Einsiedlerin is the female form.

Now, zwei is the German word for "two", and a Zweisiedler denotes a person who lives with another person in almost complete isolation, and that's what I have become over the last year and a half. My wife is the corresponding Zweisiedlerin.



Our contacts with other people have been reduced to the absolute minimum—doctors, sales staff, repair people, and the occasional visit with a friend, no longer masked because everybody, and I really mean everybody, among our acquaintances has been fully vaccinated. Of course, the relative isolation of our house, on its 3.5 acres of land and surrounded by woods and, closer by, a garden needing a lot of attention, encourages this kind of life. But the funny thing is, we like it—we feel the world at large is in such a sorry state that retreating from it is an obvious choice (if one can afford it), and that's what we have in common with the original hermits when they chose to live all by themselves in the desert or on a mountain top.

Addendum (9/15/2021): My friend Thomas Kreifelts sent me this e-mail (m.t.):
Yes, really very nice. The meaning becomes immediately obvious after months of the pandemic.
But as far as the priority of word creation is concerned, I have to pour a little water into your wine, because "Zweisiedler" is already an entry in the Grimms' dictionary [by the famous Grimm brothers—U.F.] (vol. XVI 1954) with Jean Paul, Nietzsche and Peter Rosegger given as sources, all 19th century: Zweisiedler. I liked Rosegger best.

The meaning these authors assign to the term is somewhat different in each case (and from mine), but each of them apparently took delight in forming a tongue-in-cheek analogy to an established term, and since at least two of them are considered masters of German prose, I am not at all saddened by the fact that I can no longer consider myself the inventor of the word—rather, I am flattered by finding myself in such distinguished company, and I'm grateful that Thom pointed this out to me.

Word of the Month: Der Schlachtenbummler

Word of the Month: Index

There is an obvious reason for the present WoM, the UEFA 2020 soccer tournament taking place, in spite of its official name, right now, in the summer of 2021. Schlachten is the plural of Schlacht (battle) as in Schlacht von Waterloo (Battle of Waterloo). Bummler is a noun derived from the verb bummeln, to dawdle or, and that’s the meaning in the present term, to stroll in a leisurely fashion. A Schlachtenbummler, then, is a person who strolls from battle to battle, where the battles in question are typically not of a military nature.



The term is used most frequently to denote soccer fans who travel from town to town to watch matches, especially those involving their favorite team. The general connotation is that they behave peacefully—nobody would call soccer hooligans Schlachtenbummler (the plural is the same as the singular): Yes, they look for battles, literally, but they want to participate in them, not just watch them. The accompanying photo shows my two brothers and me as Schlachtenbummler during the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

An aside: There is an obvious relation, both linguistically and semantically, between Schlacht and the verb schlachten (to slaughter). But this does not mean that one is derived from the other; rather, both derive from a Middle High German word for "kill" [Source: Online Duden].

UEFA Euro 2020, played this year

In the past, I created posts on which soccer fans among my friends and I could discuss and comment on the games played during a concurrent soccer tournament. It was great fun, and I am doing this again for the UEFA Euro 2020 competition from June 11 to July 11, which was delayed by a year due to the pandemic.

For the group phase, Germay finds herself in the mother of all "groups of death", Group F with, aside from Germany, the reigning World Champion, France, and the reigning European Champion, Portugal. Hungary will complete the quartet.

In the old days, only the first- and second-placed teams of each group advanced to the elimination rounds. This would have meant that Germany would have to finish ahead of France or Portugal in Group F to get beyond the group phase, a daunting prospect given the decidedly mixed record of the German side over the past several years. But UEFA, in its wisdom, decided in 2016 to increase the total number of participating teams from 16 to 24, which makes it necessary to start the elimination phase with a round of 16 that also includes the 4 third-placed teams with the best records. That is to say, 4 points in the group phase (1 victory and 1 draw in 3 matches) will probably be enough to advance. In fact, even 3 points may be enough, as demonstrated by Portugal during Euro 2016: They tied three times during the group phase, advanced to the elimination round as a third-placed team, and won the tournament in the end! And so, even a team with a checkered recent record like Germany's has a chance to advance beyond the group phase.

I will start the discussion in my first comment with a few additional observations about the German side.

Word of the Month: Das Affentheater

Monkeys and apes are Affen, and an Affentheater is, in the literal sense, a theater production performed by such animals. But the term is used always figuratively, to denote actions by a group of people behaving in a noisy, exaggerated, or annoying fashion that is ultimately pointless. It's a catchy image that captures succinctly a multitude of (mainly negative) connotations, and that's why I like the term.



Its use is best illustrated by an example. On Jan. 6, 2021 some far-right members of Congress tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election by formally objecting to the certified results from several states during the—essentially ceremonial—joint certification session in Congress. These efforts were doomed to failure from the outset, as the objections would have required majorities in both Houses to be sustained, and these majorities were simply not there. Like everyone else, the politicians raising the objections knew this, but did it anyway, as a political stunt and with great fanfare, apparently to impress their right-wing base. As a result, the ceremony was delayed twice for hours to allow for pointless debates whose outcomes were known from the outset. To me, these debates illustrated nicely what Germans call Affentheater.

Note also that the term does not apply to the storming of the Capitol by a right-wing mob on the same day, which interrupted the confirmation session and caused mayhem inside and outside the Capitol for hours. This was a riot with far-reaching consequences at home and abroad and far more sinister than anything one would call an Affentheater—exasperating as it may be, an Affentheater will in the end amount to not much more than an annoyance.

Word of the Month: Index

Word of the Month: Der Wichtigtuer

Word of the Month: Index

I'm reviving the word-of-the-month feature, which has been dormant for a while, to introduce a word that has been on my mind a lot these days.

Wichtig is an adjective meaning "important", and a tuer (derived from the verb tun—to do) is someone who does something or acts. A Wichtigtuer, then, is a person who "makes him- or herself important", i.e. seeks the limelight. The term is more specific than the English "attention-getter": A Wichtigtuer always participates in some public debate, whereas an attention-getter may simply dye a strand of hair baby-blue. That is, a Wichtigtuer is always an attention-getter, but not every attention-getter is a Wichtigtuer. Wichtigtuerin is the female form, and Wichtigtuerei is the noun, the thing a Wichtigtuer does.



The term often comes to my mind in connection with the current pandemic, where certain people take it upon themselves to criticize, for unconvincing reasons, the restrictions on public life recommended by epidemiologists. Note the emphasis on "unconvincing"—I do not deny the usefulness of a public, fact-based debate about the most effective response to the Covid19 virus. But I cannot take serious a self-proclaimed expert who claims that the pandemic is no more dangerous that the common flu—really? Do morgues overflow or are intensive care units in hospitals stretched to the limit on a regular basis during flu seasons? Why would anyone go public with such outlandish claims? To me, it's a Wichtigtuer, who cannot stand that others get all the attention.

Wichtigtuerei is also often at the core of the seemingly ever-increasing readiness of people to take offense (see my post on this topic). Take political cartoons as an example. Cartoonists exaggerate distinctive features of the persons they depict—Merkel's jowls, Obama's ears, Clinton's nose, Trump's corpulence—it's part of their job. This also means that when we can tell a person's ethnicity from his or her appearance in real life, we should also be able to tell it from their caricature. But when this happens, there will be, with predictable regularity, people accusing the cartoonist of racism on social media. I often feel that it's the only way for such people to feel self-important—they are Wichtigtuer (the plural is the same as the singular!).

Note that neither of these manifestations of Wichtigtuerei is harmless. People have died because they did not take the pandemic serious, and people have lost their jobs and careers have been destroyed by spurious accusations on social media.