Word of the Month: Der Tatendrang

Word of the Month: Index

Taten is the plural of Tat, which means "action" or "deed", and Drang means "urge" or "drive"—it refers to a strong inclination to do something. In combination, the terms indicate a pronounced psychological disposition towards action. But note that this state of mind is not the same as mindless activism: Yes, people full of Tatendrang get fidgety when something can be done to remedy a situation or when adventure beckons. But that does not mean that they plunge headlessly into action, no matter what the consequences are. Rather, they prefer an active over a contemplative life style, but may well be able to keep their impulses in check when the situation demands it.



Drang is perhaps best known to English speakers in the combination Sturm und Drang, a German literary movement of the late 18th century. The name is usually translated as "Storm and Stress" in English, but that is really a mistranslation because Drang does not mean "stress": a Drang comes from the inside and is not imposed from the outside. So, why does this mistranslation prevail? I don't know. Yes, "Storm and Urge" sounds strange and does not have the catchiness of the German original, but what's wrong with "Storm and Drive"?

Sevenstar Contest Cup 2016

Photobook by Ulrich Flemming et al.
Two exciting days on board the Amica Agrippina in Medemblik, Holland

Word of the Month: Der Hassprediger

Word of the Month: Index

Hass is the German word for hatred, and a Prediger is a preacher (derived from the verb predigen-to preach). Taken together, the two compounds refer to someone who, in his function as preacher, calls for hatred and violence. Hasspredigerin is the female form.



The term goes back to the end of the 19th century. But the Duden, the official German spelling guide, lists it in 2006 for the first time. This reflects an increased use in the early 2000s in connection with the activities of certain radical imams who used their pulpit to sow hatred against Western liberal societies and to call for a Holy War to overthrow them. [Source: Wikipedia article "Hassprediger"]

Since then, the term has assumed a wider meaning. It is now being used to characterize anyone who, in some public function, attempts to instill in an audience hatred of some group on the outside, be it for ethnic, political, or religious reasons, even instigate violence against members of that group. For example, the leaders of some xenophobic movements on the far right in Germany have been called Hassprediger (like other nouns ending in –er, the plural is the same as the singular).

Euro 2016

Euro 2016 has started, with 24 national teams competing for the cup. For the intial group phase, these teams have been placed into 6 groups, where each team plays 3 matches, one against each of the other members of its group. The first- and second-placed teams in each groups and the 4 best third-placed teams overall will advance to the round of 16. Here are the groups:

Group A France Switzerland Romania Albania	Group B England Russia Slovakia Wales	Group C Germany Poland Ukraine N. Ireland	Euro2016 fever in Cologne, courtesy of kidbrother
Group D Spain Croatia Czech Republic Turkey	Group E Belgium Italy Sweden Ireland	Group F Portugal Austria Hungary Iceland

The mood in Germany is guardedly optimistic. Since they won the World Cup two years ago, the Germans have hardly ever played at the level they had shown during that cup. But then again, that just fits the pattern: They typically enter a tournament with a mixed record and then improve as they advance through the rounds.

The great strength of the Mannschaft is that it works as a team, a collective in which every player can, in principle, be replaced without an apparent drop in performance of the team as a whole. At the opposite end are sides whose performance depends on and is geared to a single dominant player. Such teams can be beaten if the dominant player can be neutralized—the Germans demonstrated this during the 2014 World Cup when they beat Portugal (with Ronaldo) in the group round and Argentina (with Messi) in the final. More about this in my first comment.

Word of the Month: Der Persilschein

Word of the Month: Index

Persil was the first commercially available "self-activated" laundry detergent (i.e. a cleaner containing both soap and bleach). It was introduced in Germany in 1907 and has remained popular to the present day. The name derives from two of its original ingredients, sodium perborate and silicate. [Source] The text of the vintage poster on the left means in English "For the love of laundry".

A Schein, in this context, is a certificate, and a Persilschein is a document confirming that somebody is "clean" in the sense that there is nothing in the person's past to disqualify him or her from pursuing a career or occupying a position of influence in a certain field. The term is often used ironically, even sarcastically, when there are indications that the certificate has been obtained by means that are not entirely above-board.



There is a reason for this connotation. People who remember the fifties in Germany or know her post-war history still associate the term with the denazification program, efforts initiated by the occupying powers to rid the German bureaucracy and professions of former Nazis and war criminals. A Persilschein obtained under the program was a document confirming that one had never committed a war crime, was not a member of the Nazi party or, at worst, a fellow-traveller. The program was plagued from the start by (i) inconsistencies in its administration across the occupation zones and (ii) a lack of enthusiasm for it on the part of the Germans. As a result, quite a few people got their Persilschein undeservedly.

As to Persil, the detergent, it's now sold in many countries, including the US, in spite of the fact that the name is not always easy to pronounce for non-German speakers. In addition, persil means "parsley" in French!

Rainer Maria Rilke: Das Karussell (The Carousel)

Rilke's "Carousel" (1906) is one of the most charming poems in the German language. It tries to capture, through its rhythm and imagery, the fleeting sense impressions a spinning merry-go-round produces—it has become a classic of impressionist poetry. I was reminded of it when I visited yesterday the New England Carousel Museum in Bristol, which motivated me to try my hand at a non-rhyming line-by-line translation:

The Carousel—Original and Translation

This is not an exact literal translation. Rilke uses iambic pentameters consistently to render the movement of the carousel. Note especially how the poem picks up speed in the last stanza, and how the impressions get more blurry—this is masterfully done. Since inflected endings are rarer in English than they are in German, English words tend to be shorter than the corresponding German ones so that a literal translation often produces several stressed syllables in a row; that is, Rilke's iambic line gets lost. But I consider it important that English readers get a sense of the poem's rhythm and therefore added a little padding to recreate it (although I had to be content sometimes with fewer than five feet per line—adding more padding would have created distortions of its own by making the text wordier than the original).

Word of the Month: Der Gernegroß

Word of the Month: Index

Gern(e) is an adverb that has no exact equivalent in English. It can sometimes mean "gladly" or "readily", as in Ich helf dir gerne – "I'll gladly help you". At other times, it may have to be replaced by a form of to like followed by an infinitive, as in Ich trinke gerne Bier – "I like to drink beer". Note that this is very different from "I gladly drink beer" (when no wine is available)! Groß is an adjective meaning both "big" and "great". For example, "my big brother" becomes mein großer Bruder in German and "Frederick the Great" Friedrich der Große.

Combining the two words, we get a noun (!) indicating a person who has ambitions that his capabilities don't live up to, or a person who sees herself in a better light than others do. A "show-off" or "braggart" comes close, but these terms refer more to the way a person behaves, while being a Gernegroß is, first of all, a state of mind.

W. G. Sebald in Memoriam

W. G. Sebald (May 18, 1944 - Dec. 14, 2001) is my favorite German writer of his (and my) generation. He died on this day 14 years ago in a car accident.

I consider Sebald a soul mate (I hope this doesn't sound too presumptuous). We are both expatriates (I do not use the word "immigrants" because it implies a degree of identification with the country I live in that I do not feel), and neither of us can shake a horrified awareness of the atrocities committed by Germans of our parents' generation during the Nazi period. I do not say "memory" because we were too young to have experienced any of this first-hand, but these events become memories for Sebald's protagonists in search of their past and, through them, for the narrator to whom they tell their stories. Through him, a barely disguised Sebald himself, they become like memories also for us, the readers.

It is not surprising that Sebald's temperament appears to be overshadowed by what reviewers have called a deep-seated "melancholy". But it is also important to note that this melancholy can give way to fits of outrage or be lightened, at other times, by a sly sense of humor. What comes across, in the end, is a profound unease about the world he knows, which resounds powerfully with me and has made reading him one of my addictions.

Addendum (12/18/15). Our affinities extend to reactions to specific authors or artists. Nabokov seems to have had a specific appeal for Sebald—the writer appears, in person, in several of his stories—and Nabokov is also one of my favorite authors. Furthermore, Sebald appears to be as impressed by the painter Mathias Grünewald as I am. This elusive painter is the subject of one of the three poems in Nach der Natur (After Nature), and one of the protagonists in Die Ausgewanderten (The Emigrants) visits Colmar in France specifically to see Grünewald's masterpiece, the Isenheim Altar. I have been to Colmar for the same purpose, and standing in front of the crucifixion at the center of the altar, I experienced something that I can only describe as an existential shock—it had never happened before and has never happened again when I came across a piece of art.

Carol Jacobs on W. G. Sebald

Word of the Month: Der Fachidiot

Word of the Month: Index

A Fach is a compartment in a larger container or piece of furniture. In a more figurative sense, the word denotes a specific area of expertise, often acquired through a course of study devoted to this particular field (civil engineering is an example). In the performing arts, Fach denotes the vocal range and related specialization of a singer (for example, lyrical soprano or Heldentenor) or the type of role an actor is particularly suited for (for example, action hero or ingénue).

An Idiot in German is the same as an idiot in English. In combination with Fach, we get a Fachidiot, a person totally focused on or only interested in his special area of expertise while remaining clueless with regard to anything outside that area. Fachidiotin is the female form, but I've heard the masculine form applied to persons of either sex.



Addendum (Dec. 5, 2015). Here's an article that explicitly refers to the German term in connection with one of the hopefuls for the Republican presidential nomination (Ben Carson): The GOP and the Rise of Anti-Knowledge.

Word of the Month: Schmunzeln

Word of the Month: Index

My post on Christian Morgenstern from a few days ago suggested to me the current WoM, which is both a verb and a noun (when capitalized). It refers to a close-lipped smile that expresses good-natured joy, amusement, or satisfaction in response to something just encountered or remembered. Because of that, it is more specific than smile (lächeln in German)—you may bare your teeth when someone takes your picture or when you are kissing babies on a campaign stop without enjoying the situation. English "grin" comes close, but schmunzeln is less in-your-face and usually done without malice—nobody would ever tell you to wipe it off your face. "Smirk" is not the same because it always has negative connotations^*, and "laugh" is different altogether because it's open-mouthed and usually accompanied by a sound track.



I have to admit that schmunzeln is somewhat old-fashioned, which is too bad because to me, it is the perfect response to a poem by Morgenstern.

As to its etymology, I had supected that it may have entered German via Yiddish, but Duden Online set me straight—it can be traced back to a Middle High German form.
____________
^* A friend on Google+, Laura Gibbs, just commented: "Something about smirk: I've noticed that my students often use it with entirely positive connotations, and they are surprised when I tell them it (usually) has negative connotations. So I think something is happening to that word in English...but I am not sure why it is happening. Smile and grin both seem like words in good health! Hmmm..."

Christian Morgenstern, Humorist

This is a post I should have written in March 2014 to mark the 100th anniversary of Christian Morgenstern's death. But I missed the opportunity and must be content with this belated homage. Morgenstern (1871-1914) was a German humorist (yes, such creatures exist!) attuned to the oddities of life. Especially the idiosyncrasies of German and its use inspired many of his poems: For example, he deliberately used bad rhymes for comic effect or to gently mock the rhyming conventions of poetry1; he spun funny stories from figures of speech taken literally; he described invented creatures with names he got by fooling around with the names of existing ones; and in the introduction to a collection of his poems, he skewered the impenetrability of German academic prose. Since all of this is so tightly bound to a particular language, it's basically untranslatable. One may have better luck with poems that simply tell a story without linguistic tricks, and that's what I tried with my translation of Morgenstern's poem Der Hecht (The Pike), which can be read as poking fun at vegetarians, or religious orthodoxy, or both (see illustration on the right). The link below will lead you to the German original together with a literal translation and a rhyming Nachdichtung. Der Hecht: Original and Translations _______________ 1He shares this predilection with Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908), another master of German comic verse.

St. Anthony preaching to the pike family

Addendum (one day later): Since I posted this, I discovered a poem that (a) illustrates Morgenstern's penchant for taking figures of speech literally; and (b) uses a phrase that has an almost exact equivalent in English, a happy coincidence that motivated me to attempt a translation. And so I added Die beiden Esel to the first poem: Die beiden Esel (The Two Asses): Original and Translations Addendum 2 (Nov. 25, 2015): I tried my hand at a third poem, Der Lattenzaun, dear to me because an architect plays a leading role: Der Lattenzaun (The Picket Fence): Original and Translations Addendum 3 (Dec. 3, 2015): It seems I'm on a roll: Das aesthetische Wiesel (The Aesthetic Weasel): Original and Translations

The moon calf talking to Morgenstern about the aesthetic weasel

Word of the Month: Die Schwippschwägerin, der Schwippschwager

Word of the Month: Index

If you are married and your spouse has a sister, it's your sister-in-law; if it's a brother, it's your brother-in-law. The Germans have single words for these relations, Schwägerin and Schwager, respectively (I won't go into the etymology). So far, so good. But what about the relationship your marriage establishes between your brothers or sisters and your brothers- or sisters-in-law, i.e. between your siblings and your spouse's siblings? I'm not aware of an English term expressing that relationship—well, the Wiktionary has "co-sister-" or "co-brother-in-law", but I swear, I have never heard these terms used in common speech, or seen them used in literature, for that matter. The Germans, of course, have terms for these relationships: Schwippschwägerin and Schwippschwager: They simply prefix Schwägerin or Schwager with Schwippe (the flexible end of a whip or fishing rod), shorn of its final e (to ease pronunciation), and bingo! you have the relationship expressed in a compound noun (see the top diagram on the left). Note that the terms can also be used to express the relationships between the spouses of siblings (second diagram on the left). In my family, though, we drop the Schwipp in these cases: My brothers' wives call my wife simply Schwägerin and vice-versa. Why use Schwipp(e) to coin the term anyway? One source suggests it's because the relationship can be flipped; i.e. it works in both directions, from the wife's siblings to those of her husband and vice versa [Bastian Sick, Oct 23, 2015]. A cynic may suggest, in contrast, that it's because a Schwippschwägerin and a Schwippschwager find themselves caught in new relationships without having given their consent (just kidding!).

Word of the Month: Die Geschichtsklitterung

Word of the Month: Index Source: Wikipedia article "Geschichtsfälchung"

Soviet officials were notorious for falsifying historical records by removing references to persons no longer in favor. An example is shown in the photos on the left. The original (top) is from 1897 and depicts the members of the Revolutionary Club of St. Petersburg, with Lenin in the center. Below is a version from the 1930s with one member removed—he had fallen out of favor with Stalin. The falsification of history is not restricted to totalitarian regimes. In the US, for example, Christian fundamentalists unwilling to accept the constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state try to rewrite history by insisting that the Founding Fathers had intended all along to ground the new nation in the "Judeo-Christian tradition". Another example is the claim (since retracted) made in a textbook for Virginian 4th-graders that thousands of blacks fought for the South in the Civil War, "including two black battalions under the command of Stonewall Jackson". (Washington Post, Oct 20, 2010; see also the current controversy in Texas about the role of slavery in the Civil War). All of this involves falsification with a purpose, and the Germans, of course, have a word for it: Geschichtsklitterung. The first part is a shortened version of Geschichte, which derives from the verb geschehen (to happen, come to pass). Geschichte is used in two distinct meanings: (a) Like English "story", it may refer to a tale told by someone; for example, the English "short story" is called a Kurzgeschichte in German. (b) Like English "history", it may refer to the events that formed a political, geographical, or cultural entity as well as to descriptions of these events. It is in the latter meaning that the term appears in our current WoM. The second part, Klitterung, is a noun derived from the (rarely used) verb klittern (to cobble together; take out of context and misrepresent). Taken together, these components refer to an intentional falsification of history for political or ideological reasons. There seems to be general agreement that the term originates with Affentheurlich Naupengeheurliche Geschichtklitterung, the pun-laden and therefore untranslatable title of a book by Johann Fischart published in 1575. It is considered one of the first language experiments in German and sometimes called the Finnegan's Wake of the 16th century.

Word of the Month: Die Profilneurose

Word of the Month: Index

German Profil means, first of all, a side view of something, especially of the head of somebody. In that sense, it's very similar to English "profile" (The image on the left shows a detail of John Singer Sargent's Portrait of Madame X). But there is a second, more figurative meaning that comes into play in our current word of the month: The sum of the (positive) characteristics that uniquely identify someone and differentiate him or her from their peers. This derived meaning is probably a reflection of the fact that the unique shape of a person's forehead, nose, chin, and ears appears most clearly in a profile view. The "profile" applications like Facebook ask us to fill out hints at that second meaning, but doesn't have the heft of the German term.

Neurose is, of course, the German form of English "neurosis". In combination with Profil, it indicates a fear that one's standing among peers is not properly recognized, leading to deliberate efforts to correct the situation, which more often than not backfire because the motivation is obvious and observers are more amused than impressed. The publicity stunts politicians sometimes resort to are very often examples of a Profilneurose in action.

Palladio on the Long Island Sound

Photo album

Word of the Month: Das Bauernopfer

Word of the Month: Index

Here's another term that originated in chess and made it into wider usage from there (cf. Zugzwang, Jan. 2009). Bauer generally means "farmer" or "peasant"; but in chess, it's the name of the piece called "pawn" in English. An Opfer is a sacrifice, and a Bauernopfer is a move in which a player deliberately lets a pawn be taken in order to gain some other advantage. Outside of chess, the term has come to refer to the firing of someone in a subordinate position in order to blunt criticism of someone higher up. It pops up frequently in German discussions when officials are relieved of their duties to cover a superior's you-know-what. The meaning of Bauernopfer is similar to "sacrificial lamb" in English, but owing to its origin in chess, it has stronger strategic overtones, while lacking, conversely, the religious connotations of "sacrifical lamb." The closest term in English is probably "fall guy."

Word of the Month: Der Korinthenkacker

Korinthen are very small and dark raisins (named after Korinth, German for Corinth, the town in Greece that gave those special raisins their German name). Kacker is a noun derived from kacken, a slang term for moving your bowels. Taken literally, then, a Korinthenkacker is a person who produces nothing more impressive than raisin-like turds when going to the bathroom. Figuratively, and that's how the term is used exclusively, it's a pedant who hides his inability to see the larger picture behind an obsessive focus on small details. I say "his" because Korinthenkacker is masculine—Korinthenkackerin would be the feminine form.

The most recent time I saw the term used was on a German blog, where a commenter was called a Korinthenkacker because all he or she had to say was to correct another commenter's spelling. And my Facebook friend Richard Caldwell pointed me to a very instructive blurb on the etymology of kacken .

Word of the Month: Index

Word of the Month: Der Dünnbrettbohrer

Word of the Month: Index It's time to up the ante and introduce a word consisting of three compounds. In the present case, they are dünn (thin); Brett (board); and Bohrer (driller, from bohren—to drill). In combination, they give us a "driller of thin boards," indicating a person who tends to choose the path of least resistance—especially in terms of mental exertion—when dealing with a task. I've heard the term used, for example, to characterize a PhD candidate who has selected an easy topic and has treated it in a way that's just (barely) sufficient to pass. Dünnbrettbohrerin is the female form.

Rumpelstiltskin: The Initial Version

Following my post on parallels I saw between Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Rumpelstiltskin, I dug a little deeper into the origins of the Grimm Brothers' tale and discovered that there exists an initial version in manuscript form, which has survived by sheer accident: The Grimms had lent a handwritten collection of tales to their friend Clemens Brentano, who was keenly interested in folk tales, and expected it to be returned. Well, Brentano never did, and the manuscript was found in his bequest—it's known as the Ölenberger Handschrift (Ölenberg Manuscript). This collection contains, among others, the original version of Rumpelstiltskin, who is called Rumpenstünzchen there. The link below will lead you to a translation.
Rumpenstünzchen - My translation
A comparison of this initial version with the published one is truly startling. It shows, first of all, the lengths to which the brothers went in editing the tales they had collected, which went well beyond embellishments and involved, in the present case at least, a substantial reworking of the plot.

It starts with a reversal in the premise under which the heroine is introduced. In the original, she cannot spin flax properly and always produces gold. In the later version, she cannot spin gold from anything. Subsequent modifications of the plot result from this reversal, as summarized in the table below. (Note that because of the terseness of the original version, the reader has to make assumptions about gaps in the plot, especially when it comes to motivation—it may well be that other readers will interpret the text differently from me, but the table shows my currently best guess.)

Original manuscript	Published version
The girl always spins gold from flax.	The girl cannot spin gold from anything.
Her predicament is, apparently, that this is not considered a useful talent.	Her predicament is that the king expects her to spin gold from straw, as promised by her father, and threatens to kill her if she can't deliver.
Rumpenstünzchen helps her by marrying her to a prince. We must assume that this solves her predicament because either the prince does appreciate her talent or does not expect his wife to engage in lowly chores.	Rumpelstiltskin helps her by spinning the straw into gold for her. The king is impressed and marries her, and the two plots proceed more or less in parallel from here, except for the ending.
Rumpenstünzchen's punishment consists of his not getting the child. Other than that, he escapes unharmed.	Rumpelstiltzkin not only does not get the child, but also dies a horrible death.

The Grimms not only rewrote the plot, but embellished it with details, and it's these details that suggested to me the parallels I saw between Rumpelstiltskin and Shylock. In the initial version, we have only the actions of the girl and Rumpenstünzchen, with a guest appearance by the maid—there is no societal context. In the published version, we have interactions between the various protagonists from which a context emerges, a hierarchically-structured society in which everybody has a proper role to play and against which Rumpelstiltskin remains the outsider: As is the case with Shylock, his services are sought to get a member of that society out of serious trouble, but he is denied his mutually agreed-upon compensation, essentially by a conspiracy of the insiders against him

It's fascinating to speculate if the Grimms were, at least subconsciously, influenced in their rewriting of the tale by Shakespeare's play—after all, Shakespeare was extremely popular among the German romantics—among them were A. W. Schlegel and L. Tieck, contemporaries of the Grimms, who completed (with other collaborators) the monumental task of translating all of his plays into German, making him a "German playwright."