What do Americans make of soccer?

In a comment on the earlier FIFA World Cup post, I briefly alluded to the quadrennial ritual I have been observing in the US since I moved here: Whenever the World Cup is happening somewhere in the world, some Americans fall over themselves declaring how boring, silly etc the game is. H. Hertzberg has a column in the current New Yorker, in which he describes this as a distinctly right-wing phenomenon. I would like to add two points to this discussion (see my comments)

Word of the month: Unschuldslamm

Unschuldslamm combines Unschuld (innocence) with Lamm (lamb). The term refers to a person claiming innocence w.r.t. some misdeed. It's typically used in sentences like "he plays (or acts) the Unschuldslamm"; i.e. there is a strong implication that the claim is false, like when someone says, "I didn't do it!".

Both the timing of and the drawing for this WoM were inspired by the current FIFA World Cup held in S. Africa, where we can watch, in match after match, players committing fouls and then acting the Unschuldslamm with precisely the gesture shown.

BTW Unschuld is formed by prefixing Schuld ("guilt") with un, which can be used to turn the meaning of a noun or adjective into its opposite--cf. English "unknown" or "undead".

[Source: Wild Things in the German Language: Kindle version | iBook version]

FIFA World Cup 2010

We're under way!

A friend sent me the "photo of the year" on the left...

FIFA World Cup 2010: One More Week

The last preparatory friendlies have been played, each participating country has nominated the 23 players it will take to S.Africa, and suspense is rising among those to who plan to follow the competition. I myself will travel to Germany next week to watch the matches with my brothers and any other soccer enthusiast who will be in the vicinity. I will start a thread on the day of the first match, June 12, where we may post comments and exchange opinions on a day-by-day basis as we have done in the past. The present thread gives us the opportunity to speculate, on the chances of our team or the team we are rooting for, or about anything else pertinent to the Cup before it starts. I will begin with some comments on the German team.

Word of the month: Reisefieber

Word of the Month: Index

This compound word combines Reise (“travel, trip, journey”) and Fieber (“fever”). It denotes the excitement one may feel in anticipation of an upcoming trip. I experience this feeling right now when I think of my trip to Germany next week to visit my family in Cologne and to watch the games of the FIFA World Cup in S. Africa with soccer enthusiasts like me.

Note on pronunciation. Four distinct syllables, with the stress on the first and a secondary stress on the third syllable: RYE•sah•fee•ber. Note also the difference in the pronunciations of the "ei" and "ie"!

Word of the month: Schmusekatze

Schmusekatze combines the verb schmusen (to snuggle, cuddle) with Katze (cat). It denotes someone who likes to snuggle with or cuddle another person, possibly as prelude to other activities with that person.

It’s interesting to compare German schmusen and Yiddish schmooze, which are clearly related. But they differ in meaning: Schmooze is all talk, while schmusen is all action—talking would break the mood.

Note on pronunciation. Four distinct syllables: SHMOO·zeh·katt·seh. The main stress is on the first syllable, the third one gets a secondary stress.

[Source: Wild Things in the German Language: Kindle version | iBook version]

Word of the month: Kauderwelsch

The term is used, in the narrower sense, to refer to speech made incomprehensible because it is a mixture of words from different languages, often mispronounced. In the broader sense, it may mean just "gibberish". Welsch is an old-fashioned word for a Romance language or a speaker of such a language. The origin of the Kauder part is not clear. The most convincing explanation, to me, takes into account that in Swiss German, the term is Chuderwälsch and may have originally referred to the speech of the people of Chur in the canton of Graubünden--Martin Luther used the term in this sense.

In any case, this is a favorite word of mine because of the way it sounds--it mimics what it designates (it will never make it into English, though, I think). I was reminded of it when we talked, in a previous post, about Denglish, the mixture of German and English found in the news, in advertising, and in daily speech in present-day Germany--language purists call it, yes, Kauderwelsch, although it's perfectly comprehensible to most.