Word of the Month: Index
A
Schimmel is a white horse, and
Amt denotes, in this context, a government office. In combination, they refer not to a bureaucrat as a person, but to bureaucracy as a sometimes baffling phenomenon. When you are confronted with some bureaucratic absurdity, you may say, "
Der Amtsschimmel wiehert (whinnies)." A fine example is given by the foreign student who tried to enroll at the University of Vienna, but could not do it because he did not have a residence permit and could not get a residence permit because he was not enrolled at the university. [
Beikircher p. 314]
Now, what does a beautiful animal like a white horse have to do with bureaucratic excess? Nothing, it turns out!
Schimmel derives, by way of folk etymology, from
Simile (Latin for "similar"), a term used in Austrian offices to refer to a boilerplate form from which other forms could be generated. It came to stand for the enthusiasm with which forms are embraced by some bureaucracies and for their sometimes unfathomable ways in general. [
Source]
[Source:
Wild Things in the German Language:
Kindle version |
iBooks version]
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