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 In biology, this term has been replaced by Bakterie in German, but Spaltpilz remains very much in the language in a metaphorical meaning, to denote someone who works hard to split a group into factions.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).

Word of the month: Schwein(e)hund

A Schwein is a pig and a Hund a dog. Put the two together and you have a word designating someone who might be called a "bastard" in English. But the meaning can vary considerably depending on context, with a trace of admiration mixed in at one end and a completely derisive, contemptuous connotation at the other end.

I experimented with several ways of drawing the creature in question and show the two I considered the most successful ones—one illustrating the easy approach, where the animal is split into two halves crosswise, and one illustrating a more difficult approach, where the animal is split lengthwise. I have not tried what appears to me to be the most difficult approach, to draw a creature that would result from mating a pig with a dog. One problems is that some dog breeds already look as if they resulted from that kind of union—how does one draw a cartoon of a cartoon? But I haven't given up yet...

As to spelling: The e between the two constituent nouns is optional and can be added to make the transition from n to h easier to pronounce.

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

On Free-Riders and Tax Cheats

A recent article in the NYTimes introduces the free-rider problem as follows:

“You can watch PBS without making a donation; you can enjoy clean air even if you drive a car that pollutes. Such goods, however, give rise to the so-called free-rider problem: acting selfishly makes sense for each individual (why sacrifice if you don’t have to?) but as more and more people choose to act selfishly, the good disappears and everyone loses.”

The article struck a chord with me because I had just met an accountant who stated proudly that he knew how rich people could manage their money in ways that allowed their heirs never to pay any taxes. I was taken aback and remarked, “But will they use the roads built with other people’s taxes?”, to which he answered, gleefully, “Well, the roads will not be built with their taxes!” And when I pointed out that we were currently watching a whole country, Greece, going down the tubes because, among other things, cheating on taxes is endemic there, he replied that everything he would suggest would be legal.

In other words, I had encountered a form of the free-rider problem before I even knew that it had a name. Now, I find it perfectly legitimate to try not to pay more taxes than necessary, and that’s why we employ our own tax planner. But I do consider attempts to avoid paying any taxes while fully using the goods and services created by the taxes paid by others (roads, police protection, food safety supervision, to name a few) a form of sociopathology.

I knew that “cheating the government” was an attitude prevalent in the underground economy of tradespeople, which I deal with frequently. My conversation with the accountant showed me, however, that the attitude goes all the way up to people with the highest income. This is very different in the country I come from, where people are willing to pay taxes as long as they see them used in beneficial ways. In fact, conversations with friends and what I read in online magazines suggest to me that plans of the current German government for tax relief are meeting a less than enthusiastic response. People know that as a result, the public debt would have to increase or some social services be cut, and that’s considered worse by many than having 200 Euros or so more in their pockets.

Euro 2012 (no, not that Euro!)

Today was the drawing to determine the initial 4 groups of four teams to start competition in next year's European Championship tournament in Poland and the Ukraine. These are the groups that were drawn:

A: Poland, Greece, Russia, Czech Republic (31.5)
B: Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Portugal (5.75)
C: Spain, Italy, Ireland, Croatia (9.75)
D: Ukraine, Sweden, France, England. (23.25)

The numbers in brackets indicate the average team ranking for each group according to the current FIFA rankings (overall, not restricted to Europe, which exaggerates the differences somewhat). The extraordinary spread results from the fact that Poland and the Ukraine, the two lowest-ranked teams in the competition, qualified as host nations and were seated ahead of powerhouses such as Germany and England. Result: We have the mother of all groups of death in group B, where the lowest-ranked team is ranked higher than the highest-ranked team in group A.

Some implications in my comment...

Word of the Month: Kadavergehorsam

Word of the Month: Index

A Kadaver is a cadaver or corpse, and Gehorsam means "obedience." Kadavergehorsam refers to an unquestioning, blind obedience or a total abandonment of one's free will to a higher authority. The term entered German via the constitution of the Jesuit order as written by its founder, St. Ignace of Loyola. It demands from every member that he obey his superiors "as if he were a cadaver that lets itself be carried anywhere and treated in any which way." The term was used in Germany in the 19th century first as an anti-Jesuit catchphrase and later also in polemics against the Prussian military. It serves nowadays as a general reference to a blind obedience that's no longer desired, not in the army, not in civilian life, not anywhere. [My source]

According to the Wikipedia article I referenced, the comparison that St. Ignace uses goes back to a formulation by St. Francis of Assissi, who wrote several centuries earlier and, in turn, relied on an even earlier scholastic tradition. But it's the Germans who distilled the underlying image into the compound noun that's our current Word of the Month. This illustrates again how easy it is in German to succinctly express shaded meanings by hitching seemingly unrelated words together. I must also confess that until I did research for this month's word, I thought Kadavergehorsam simply meant obedience till you're dead. The history of the term that I discovered, though, shows that it has a much more interesting pedigree.

'Bout them Germans...

Posted by reader Heika:

Hi Ulrich, I just finished reading a review of Michael Lewis's book "Boomerang," which discusses the current financial crisis country to country. The reviewer made this comment, which for me rang very true, admittedly based on my very short stay of two years in the country:

“There was no credit boom in Germany,” an official told Lewis. “Real estate prices were completely flat. There was no borrowing for consumption. Because this behavior is totally unacceptable in Germany.”

I don't know if you can address the prices of real estate to verify the unnamed official's accuracy, but what do you think about the claim that "borrowing for consumption" is totally "unacceptable." My personal experience is that Lewis got this right, and this is one very good reason the Germans continue to do well while all around them are in despair.

Loved your latest drawing. Heika

Words of the Month: Hausdrachen, Pantoffelheld

So far, I have resisted posting WoMs that could be viewed as sexist—I briefly alluded to this when, in a discussion about maulfaul, I was asked about an antonym, i.e. a word referring to someone who can't shut up, and I had to answer that these words do exist, but tend to be clearly aimed at women and therefore could be considered sexist. I do not intend to feature such words, but today, I'm making an exception. It was simply too tempting to illustrate the word in question, sexist as it may be. But in order to be an equal-opportunity sexist, I paired it, upon the suggestion of Laraine, with a word that's sexist w.r.t. the opposite gender.

So, here goes: Haus means "house" or "home", and a Drachen is a dragon. A Hausdrachen is a woman who tyrannizes her family, especially her husband—she's a shrew. A Pantoffel is a bedroom slipper, and a Held is a hero (as in Heldentenor). A Pantoffelheld is a guy who talks tough, but takes to his heels at the first sign of danger—he's a hero only in the safety of his own home, unless, of course, he meets a Hausdrachen there. One could say that a Hausdrachen and a Pantoffelheld are a perfectly matched pair, in more than one respect.

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

We dodged a bullet

Snowfall on Friday caused more damage to our trees than hurricane Irene did in August—it also left us without electricity for 75 hrs, which meant no water from the well, which meant the toilets stopped working once the water in the tank was used up. But things could have been worse: A white oak behind our house split and one half fell on our roof, but didn't damage the roof itself as far as we can see without the tree being removed.

Why am I reporting all of this? Because the word of the month will be delayed by a few days—I'm too busy dealing with the aftermath of all of the above.

Word of the month: Lebenslüge

Word of the Month: Index

Here's another addition to Leben ("life") that creates a special meaning: A Lüge is a lie, and a Lebenslüge is a lie people tell themselves in order to be able to live with a clear conscience in spite of the fact that some actions in the past should give them anything but a clear conscience. It appears to be a particular manifestation of cognitive dissonance, which we talked about a while ago. According to the Wikipedia article I consulted, the term goes back to Henrik Ibsen's "The Wild Duck", which means there has to be an initial coinage in Norwegian—I wonder what that would be.

It is interesting to note that in German political discourse, the term has been applied to nations or countries; for example, to countries that go to great lengths to suppress the memory of and references to atrocities that have been committed in the past in the name of the country or were sanctioned by its leaders, or to countries whose self-image or policies are based on false assumptions about events that happened in the past.

Word of the Month: Spaßvogel

Here’s yet another addition to the KrautBlog aviary. Spaß can mean “fun”, as in “Wir haben Spaß gehabt”(“We’ve had fun”), or “joke”, as in “Es war doch nur Spaß” (“It was only a joke”). A Spaßvogel is a droll or humorous person, one always ready to crack a joke, a wag.

Note on pronounciation. The “v” is pronounced like English “f”, not like English “v”.

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

Sailing in the Adriatic 2011

Kroatien und Montenegro 2011

By Ulrich Flemming mit Beiträgen von Dietrich Gottwald

Back from one of the greatest trips I ever took (the preview shows about half of the photo book I created afterwards)--I will open a post soon about the specific allure of the Mediterranean, which becomes even more irresistible when experienced from a sailing boat

Word of the Month: Lebenskünstler

Word of the Month: Index

Leben means "life" and a Künstler is an artist. Lebenskünstler refers not so much to people who turn their life into a piece of art than to people able to face whatever life throws at them with equanimity and a minimum of fuss. It's not so much that they see something positive in every situation (a form of self-delusion); rather, they always seem to find a way out of problems they encounter without kvetching and self-dramatization. It's also not a matter of "grace under pressure"—Lebenskünstler don't let pressure get to them in the first place.

As you may guess, I have great admiration für Lebenskünstler and wish I myself had more of one in me. I'm surprised that there does not seem to exist an English equivalent with exactly the same shade of meaning.

Note: Attentive readers will have noticed that I have been using Lebenskünstler also as a plural. This is correct: It's one of the German -er nouns whose plural is the same as the singular.

Word of the month: Neidhammel

Neid means "envy", one of the deadly sins (it's also the last name of the coach of the German national women's soccer team that is competing right now for the World Cup). A Hammel is a (castrated) male sheep or a mutton, if it's dead on the table. A Neidhammel is a person of a rather disagreeable kind, one that habitually feels envy towards anybody who seems to have any advantage. I found it very hard to express this feeling graphically, and impossible without providing some context.

By way of explanation, one may observe that if Hammel is combined with a trait or habit, it can connote a person who makes this habit a defining characteristic. Thus, a Streithammel is a person who loves a Streit ("fight"). But I can't explain why a Hammel is considered a particularly obsessive creature. And yes, the "ei" in Neid (and Streit) rhymes with "eye".

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

Word of the month: Putzfimmel

Word of the Month: Index

Putzen means "to clean" and a Fimmel is a craze for or an obsession with something. Putzflimmel denotes an obsession with keeping things, especially your house, not just clean, but entirely spotless. A person thus afflicted keeps cleaning utensils always in easy reach so that any trace of dirt or dust can be attacked as soon as it is discovered. This kind of person is also know as a Putzteufel (cleaning devil), the opposite of a slob.

...and speaking of slobs: I have found that it is just about impossible to live with someone who has a Putzfimmel.

Note on pronunciation: The "u" in Putz is a short "oo" as in "foot".

Cognitive Dissonance

I drew the cartoon on the right for a page on Laraine's website, in which she introduces "cognitive dissonance" to readers of her books (as part of a larger effort to "build background knowledge bit-by-bit"). I'm picking up her thread because ever since I learned about this concept from psychology, it has been indispensable in my understanding of how a part of the population functions. All through my life, I have observed with wonderment people who are seemingly able to entertain simultaneously two conflicting opinions about themselves and to do this over extended periods of time. Cognitive dissonance gives a name to this phenomenon, and studies dealing with it investigate the mechanisms people employ to neutralize its effects.

A particular common one is "it's not my fault." This is very popular, for example, with obese people who know they eat too much, but are nevertheless unwilling to change their eating habits. A popular it's-not-my-fault ploy in this case is to blame one's genes—I actually have seen this used explicitly in a food ad! Of course, if genes were to blame for the obesity epidemic hitting the Western countries (the US is not alone in this), we would have to assume that some mega-sized mutations happened over the last two generations—but people looking for an excuse will never question its underlying premises (another common ploy is to dismiss the simple arithmetic underlying the relation between calories burned and units of physical exercise as "useless" or "questionable" math).

More of my musings on this topic (I mean cognitive dissonance, not obese people!) in the comments...

Word of the month: Schluckspecht

Our Schnapsdrossel (WoM for March) needs a drinking companion, and here he is. A Schluck is a gulp or swig (from schlucken - "to swallow"), and a Specht is a woodpecker. Put the two together and you have another moniker for a boozer or drunk. Again, I do not know how the word originated—perhaps the alliteration of the two components (the S in Specht is pronounced like English "sh") played a role.

Addendum (4/9/2012): According to this theory, the term goes back to certain woodpecker species that hammer holes into tree trunks in order to get to the sap.

Anyway, we have a word that may look daunting to foreigners: 11 consonants and only 2 vowels! Things appear easier when you realize that the "sch", "ck", and "ch" indicate but one phoneme each, which reduces the number of effective consonants in the word to 7. Still, for speakers of languages that avoid consonant clusters (like Japanese) the word is a challenge.

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

Word of the month: Prinzipienreiter

Prinzip is German for “principle” and a Reiter is a “rider” (of horses). Hitch the two words together, and you have a person who acts on principle, as a matter of principle, in the most inflexible, even bone-headed way no matter what the consequences are. I’ve found, both in Germany and in the US, Prinzipienreiter (singular and plural are the same for both nominative and accusative!) especially among the ranks of low-level officials who get their authority not from their expertise or charisma, but solely through their position, and are willing to use what little power they have to the max by following procedures to the tee.

Here’s an incident during this year’s mardi-gras in Cologne that shows beautifully Prinzipienreiter at work (I’ll summarize the incident in my first comment for people who don’t speak German).

Note on pronunciation: Prin·TSEE·pee·en·RYE·ter.

Word of the month: Schnapsdrossel

Word of the Month: Index

Another addition to the KrautBlog aviary: Schnaps (one p!) should be known to English speakers—it's a generic term for any hard liquor; a Drossel is a thrush; and Schnapsdrossel is a colloquial moniker for a boozer. I do not know how the term originated, but it remains a fact, in Germany and elsewhere, that alcohol leads some people to song.*

*Addendum: I learned today (3/14/2012) that the Drossel in Schnapsdrossel has nothing to do with birds. It's an old name for "throat", which survives in modern German only in the verb erdrosseln (to strangle)—must have the same Germanic root as "throttle". So, a Schnapsdrossel is really a throat through which liquor flows freely.

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

Word of the month: Wutbürger

The Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (Society for the German Language) made Wutbürger its word of the year for 2010. The term combines Wut (an intense anger that is ready to swing into action at the slightest provocation) and Bürger (citizen). I selected this term for several reasons: It picks up on issues I already introduced in my posts on the current German funk and the Leitkultur discussion. Furthermore, the circumstances in which it is used have parallels in the US. And it demonstrates, again, the ease with which words can be combined in German to create concise expressions for rather nuanced phenomena.

The term was popularized by an essay in the magazine Der Spiegel, whose author used it to describe conservative, if not reactionary, members of the middle class who are deeply dissatisfied with the direction Germany is taking. Specifically, they are disturbed by the fact that it is becoming an immigration country, and they do not see their point of view sufficiently championed by elected officials. However, the term is also applied to groups that do not fit this profile, like the people of Stuttgart who staged massive protests against plans to tear down their old train station and replace it with a more modern structure. As is usual in Germany, this created a debate—more in my first comment...

Chickadee Desperado

I shot a frontal portrait of a chickadee yesterday that just had to be enhanced as shown.

To my German friends: A chickadee is a Kohlmeise.

Words of the month: Bücherwurm, Leseratte

Bücher is the plural of Buch (book), and a Bücherwurm is the German equivalent of the English "bookworm"—a person who has no life outside of books. Since the German and English terms are so close both linguistically and semantically, there would be no reason to make Bücherwurm a word of the month.

However, there is also the Leseratte. In German, you can attach certain words to Ratte ("rat") to coin a term for someone who likes something: A Wasserratte (Wasser means "water") is a person who loves to be in the water, while a Landratte is a person who doesn't, or at least doesn't like to set foot on a ship. Lesen means "to read", and a Leseratte is a person who loves to read. In distinction to a Bücherwurm, though, there is no implication that this person has no life outside of books—an "avid reader" comes close in English, but doesn't conjure up the image of a voraciously reading rat, which I find very appealing (and I'm a person who suffers from muriphobia!). Anyway, I think a Leseratte and a Bücherwurm make a nicely contrasting pair.

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

Wikileaks: My Two Cents

I have a perspective on this issue (based in part on observations I made when I was living in Germany) that I see rarely voiced—that's why I'm posting, even though I'm late to the party.

I think Assange's argument for total transparency contains a basic fallacy: That when you take one part out of a dynamic system, everything else stays the same. In this case, that when all communication becomes public, it will result in complete transparency. I think this is not the case: If people want to keep their communication secret in plain view, they start to speak in code. Result: Less transparency! Moreover, the communication is now harder to interpret.

More in my comment...

Word of the month: Leitkultur

I selected the present word of the month after reading, in translation, Jürgen Habermas's essay Leadership and Leitkultur, which recently appeared in the NYT. The term Leitkultur is formed from the verb leiten (to guide, lead) and Kultur (culture). It denotes the "guiding culture" of a people or country or, more accurately, the set of values and beliefs, and the rules of behavior based on them, that govern the way the members of the group view themselves and interact with each other.

The concept of a Leitkultur represents one of the flash points in the discussion currently raging in Germany about the best way to deal with immigrants who seemingly refuse integration into the surrounding society and culture. Habermas has argued—in the past and again in the essay—that it is sufficient for immigrants who want to become permanent residents or citizens that they (a) learn German and (b) accept the constitution. Others believe that this is not enough—they demand, in addition, that immigrants embrace a German Leitkultur. In my first comment, I'll talk about Leitkultur as a useful term to focus this discussion, even if it becomes problematic when it's turned into a cry for political action. In a second comment, I will try to indicate connections with trends I observe in the US.

Note on pronunciation: Again, watch your vowels! The "ei" is a diphthong pronounced like English "eye"; the first "u" in Kultur is a short "oo" as in "good"; and the second "u" is a long "oo" as in "boot". The main stress is on the first and a secondary one on the third syllable.

Words of the month: Dreckspatz, Schmutzfink

Dreck and Schmutz mean basically the same thing in German: dirt. A Spatz is a sparrow and a Fink a finch. Hitched to a word meaning "dirt", they refer to people who get themselves dirty easily and may not be too eager to clean up after themselves. Dreckspatz, in particular, is often applied to children who actually enjoy playing in the mud and getting it all over themselves.

Note on pronunciation: The "u" in Schmutz is a short "oo" as in "foot" and the "z" in Spatz and Schmutz a very sharp, voiceless "s".

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

Word of the month: Nibelungentreue

Word of the Month: Index

Let me start with a story: The coach of the German national soccer team, Jogi Löw, nominated two forwards (Podolski and Klose) to the squad he took to the World Cup in South Africa this summer that raised eyebrows: Podolski had just finished a miserable season for his club, and Klose hadn’t even played on a regular basis—he had been warming the bench for players in better form. But when playing for the national team, they had scored reliably year after year—often the winning goal in clutch situations. So, Löw owed them and was subsequently accused, by some critics, of Nibelungentreue when he nominated them. What did the critics mean by that?

The term Nibelungentreue combines two words: Treue, which, in this context, means “loyalty“; and Nibelungen, which refers, in Norse and Germanic myths, to the royal family of the Burgundians, whose capital was Worms on the Rhine river. The tale of their downfall is told in the Nibelungenlied (Song of the Nibelungs), an epic from the middle ages, in which misplaced loyalty plays a major part. Nibelungentreue, then, refers to a form of blind loyalty that persists beyond reason or to a point where it becomes counterproductive. My first comment will give a little more literary and historical background for this altogether interesting term. (And no, Löw's loyalty turned out to be no Nibelungentreue in the end: Both Podolski and Klose played well enough all through the Cup to silence the critics.)

Keep in mind that the Nibelungen in Nibelungentreue should not be confused with the Nibelung in Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung—he is a dwarf (Alberich), and the Nibelungen are a race of dwarfs in the Ring cycle.

Note on pronunciation: Watch your vowels! The i is a long "ee“ as in "see"; the "u“ a short "oo“ as in "foot“; and the "eu“ a diphthong as the "oy“ im "joy“: NEE•bah•loong•en•TROY•ah.

Word of the month: Seebär

See (fem.) means "sea" and Bär means "bear". Seebär is usually used together with alt (old): Ein alter Seebär is the German equivalent of "an old tar" or "an old salt". I had great fun drawing this one!

BTW See (masc.) means "lake", as in Schwanensee—Swan Lake. And Meer (neut.) also means "sea" in German. In case you wonder how bodies of water can be masculine, feminine and neuter, you may read what I had to say about the difference between natural and grammatical gender on this blog.

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

German funk

When I was in Germany this summer, I found the country in a strange funk. I say "strange" because this mood is in contrast to a booming economy, which is bucking the world-wide trend: Unemployment is lower than it has been in years; the carmakers are running extra shifts to meet world-wide demand etc. And besides, the young and inexperienced soccer team did much better than expected during the World Cup. But still, the Germans seem to be unhappy—more in my first comment...

Word of the month: Volksverhetzung

This compound noun hitches together Volk (people--as in "the American people") and Verhetzung (stirring up of hatred, especially against other peoples or minorities; vicious demagoguery). Volksverhetzung is a crime in present-day Germany, no doubt in response to the Nazi rhetoric of the past, in which Volksverhetzung played a major part.

The law is being enforced; i.e. people have been convicted based on it. I remember a case of the recent past, when a Neo-Nazi was convicted under the law for anti-semitic remarks that were considered sufficiently close to Nazi rhetoric. However, I do not know how systematic the prosecution of this type of speech is. More in my first comment...

Note on pronunciation: Both v's are pronounced like English "f". (Remember: A Volkswagen is a Folksvagen in German!).

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...