Word of the Month: Die Jugendsünde

Word of the Month: Index

Here's a word that pops up frequently in German discussions about forgetting on the web, especially when it comes to social media. Jugend means "youth" and Sünde "sin." If you did something foolish in your youth and are embarrassed when you are reminded of it in later life, you may try to dismiss your trespass as a Jugendsünde, as something that should be ignored or forgiven in light of your age at the time. Examples may be a bad poem you published as a freshman in a student newspaper or a tasteless selfie you posted as a teenager on Instagram. Truly criminal acts can hardly ever be considered Jugendsünden (that's the plural).

Word of the Month: Sündenbock

Word of the Month: Index

Sünden means "sins," and a Bock is a male goat in this context. Sündenbock is used in German in exactly the same way in which "scapegoat" is used in English: It denotes a person who has been falsely accused of a misdeed and subsequently ostracized within a group, with the intent to turn suspicion away from the real culprits.

That these terms have the same meaning in the respective languages is not surprising because both have their origin in a ritual described in the Old Testament. On the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the High Priest puts his hands on a goat in order to transfer the sins of the people of Israel onto the animal and then has it, and with it the sins of the congregation, chased into the wilderness. [Leviticus 16, 21-22]



[Source: Wild Things in the German Language: Kindle/paperback version | iBooks version]