Wild Things in the German Language

I've made my second eBook in a Kindle version.

The book collects my Word-of-the-Month drawings, including several that haven't been published yet. It's intended for readers interested in German or students learning German who want to have some fun learning new words in that language.

If you do not have a Kindle, Kindle Readers simulating it are available for common platforms:
Mac Reader • PC Reader • iPad Reader.

I'd love to hear in the comments section below from readers who got the book.

Word of the Month: Gnadenbrot

Gnade means "grace" or "mercy", and Brot means "bread". The term refers to the charity someone receives in recognition of past service. I love the concreteness of the term: I always picture an old watchdog—half-blind, hard of hearing, and with bad joints—who can no longer perform his duties, but is still fed and cared for because of the dedication to his job he has shown in the past.

Addendum (5/22/12). A friend just sent me this by e-mail (m.t.):
"Apropos your associations with Gnadenbrot: I had exactly the same and a vague memory of the origin: Grimm Brothers, Fairy Tales, no. 48, "Old Sultan," which starts like this:

A farmer had a faithful dog called Sultan, who had grown old and lost all his teeth so that he could no longer hold anything fast. One day the farmer was standing with his wife before the front door and said, "Tomorrow I'll shoot Old Sultan, he is no longer of any use." His wife, who felt pity for the faithful animal, answered, "Because he has served us for so many years and faithfully stood by us, we might well give him his keep [Gnadenbrot in the original!]." "Nonsense!" said the man. "You are not right in your head. He has not a tooth left in his mouth, and not a thief will be afraid of him; now he may be off. If he has served us, he has had good feeding for it." ...

As we know, it all ends well."

For the Grimm quote, I modified a translation of 1884 by M. Taylor. I, too, could not think of a way to render Gnadenbrot more faithfully in English without sounding awkward. Anyway, there is a good chance that this story also is the source for my association of Gnadenbrot with an old watch dog because courtesy of my grandfather, I grew up with the Grimm Brothers.

Found Art Around the World

I have produced my first ebook, a collection of photographs I took around the world. The underlying message is that "art makes us see things we did not see before". For more details, hit the link below.

Kindle version, viewable on the Kindle Fire or a Kindle Reader tailored to a specific platform, free to download:
Mac Reader • PC Reader • iPad Reader

iBooks version, prepared with iBooks Author specifically for the Apple store.

In the comments section below, I'd love to hear from people who got the book.

Word of the Month: Spaltpilz

Here's another mushroom (Pilz), but this one is less endearing than the Glückspilz we dealt with in the past. Spalten means "to split" or, if you are in the mood, "to rend asunder". Spaltpilz used to be a botanical term for a bacterium, which, after all, multiplies by splitting. In biology, this term has been replaced by Bakterie in German, but Spaltpilz remains very much in the language in a metaphorical meaning, to denote someone who works hard to split a group into factions.

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

Shitstorm hits Germany

I mentioned briefly in the 'Bout them Germans post (Nov. 2011) that Michael Lewis had alleged a German obsession with excrement—actually, Lewis refers to the work of someone else, but I haven't followed that paper trail yet. My friend Esther just referred me to an article that makes one wonder anyway: A jury of academics selected "shitstorm" to become the "anglicism of the year" in Germany—apparently, it will fill a gap in the language. [On a personal note, I have often regretted that German has not equivalent for "The shit hits the fan", and I have been using the phrase untranslated.]

Now, what does that tell us about the comparative scatological inclinations of English and German speakers? I don't know at first glance. Yes, the jury selected "shitstorm" when it could have selected "cloud" or "occupy". But this does not necessarily mean that Germans always select the scatological term, given a choice—it may mean that there is, in fact, a dearth in the language when it comes to such terms.

Anyway, some day I may find the time to get back to Lewis and his source.

Word of the Month: Staatsverdrossenheit

With the present WoM, I'm returning to a theme I have touched upon in previous posts (Wutbürger, German funk). This time, I'm introducing a term that succinctly captures the phenomenon in question.

Staat means "state" and Verdrossenheit is a condition that could be described as a persistent ill humor, moroseness, or funk. Put the two together and you have a state of mind that I find increasingly expressed on German blogs, a general unhappiness not only with the government currently in charge, but with the way the country has been administered for a while. Politicians are accused of not paying attention to the real needs of their constituents. Rather, they appear beholden to lobbies and special interests (on the right) or to rigid ideological principles that do not work in practice (on the left), and Staatsverdrossenheit is the result.

A word of caution is in order: Useful as the term is to capture a particular state of mind, I cannot tell, from my distant perch, how widespread the sentiment it refers to is in present-day Germany.

Guten Rutsch...

...("good slide"), that's what my German friends—and some Americans who knew enough German—wished me for New Year's Eve. I always thought the phrase referred to the fact that snow or ice may be on the road at that night or that most Germans moved through it in an alcoholic daze. But John Dingly (thanks, John!) pointed out to me that Rutsch, in that context, is most likely a piece of folk etymology that derives, via Yiddish, from Hebrew rosh ("beginning"), as in Rosh-ha-Shana.

Grammatical note: Guten Rutsch is the accusative (direct object case) of guter Rutsch. Why do Germans not use this nominative? Because Guten Rutsch is short for Ich wünsche dir/euch/Ihnen einen guten Rutsch (I wish you a good slide), where (einen) guten Rutsch is the direct object. The same holds BTW for Guten Morgen, Guten Tag, Guten Abend (Good Morning, G'Day, Good Evening).