Word of the Month: Der Morgenmuffel

Word of the Month: Index

Morgen means "morning," and a Muffel is a sullen person, a grouch. Put together, they signify a person who habitually wakes up in a bad mood and needs some time before being able to face the world with an even temper.

The late German chancellor Willy Brandt was, according to his wife Ruth, a Morgenmuffel. And recently, I came across a study dealing with the important question why (German) teenagers are such Morgenmuffel (the plural is the same as the singular).

Word of the Month: Die Sternstunde

Word of the Month: Index

Stern means “star” and Stunde “hour.” A Sternstunde (plural Sternstunden) is a “dramatically compressed, fateful” event in which a “lasting development is being condensed into a single day, a single hour, or even a single minute” as it occurs only “rarely in the life of an individual or in the course of history.” These are the words of Stefan Zweig, who published between 1927 and 1943 fourteen historical “miniatures” under the title Sternstunden der Menschheit (Sternstunden of Humankind). He called the events he described Sternstunden because they “outshine the night of transience brilliantly and lastingly like stars.” [Source]

What Zweig had in mind becomes clear when we look at some of the Sternstunden he chose to describe: Händel composes the Messiah in a state of creative intoxication after a near-fatal illness (1741); the Janissaries enter Constantinople through a secret gate during the Turkish siege and conquer the city for the Turks (1453); Lenin returns to Russia in a sealed train to lead the Bolshevik revolution (1917). What unifies these events is their momentousness—in Zweig’s depiction, they changed the course of political or cultural history almost over night. If it was for the better or worse is not a concern of his.*

In present-day usage, however, the term Sternstunde has a distinctly positive connotation—it designates a highpoint or a pivotal moment that turns things around in the course of history. For example, Einstein’s publication of his paper on special relativity could be called a Sternstunde in the history of physics, and Germany’s unexpected victory in the 1954 World Cup a Sternstunde for German soccer.


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*Historians have also questioned the accuracy of Zweig’s narratives or the importance he assigns to certain events; for example, his account of the creation of the Messiah appears to be entirely fictitious. But this does not diminish the usefulness of the term he coined.

Word of the Month: Der Platzhirsch

Word of the Month: Index

Platz means "place" in a very broad sense—it can be a location, a position (like in a hierarchy), a space occupied by or reserved for someone, or a (city) square. A Hirsch is a male deer, i.e., a stag. Platzhirsch in the original sense is a hunting or forestry term that refers to the dominant stag in an area who lays claim to the resident hinds when they are in heat and fights off all competitors. It's used figuratively to indicate the leader of a group who claims all the rights and privileges such a position entails. In English, we would say he is the "alpha dog."

Word of the Month: Treppenwitz

Word of the Month: Index

A Treppe is a stair(case), and Witz means "joke." In combination, they indicate an event that, in retrospect, looks like a bad joke because it had completely unintended, negative consequences—it's an initiative that backfired in a way that would be funny, if it weren't so serious. The term can be applied to a wide range of situations, from personal predicaments to the ironies of history. An example would be the hiring of a new CEO for a troubled company who was expected to turn it around, but leads it into bankruptcy instead—the hiring becomes a Treppenwitz in retrospect.



But what in the world does a staircase have to do with something that turns out to be a failure in the end? In order to understand this, one has to know the term's history. It is a translation of the French phrase l'esprit de l'escalier ("wit of the staircase"), which was coined in the 18^th century and refers to a clever rejoinder or reposte one thinks about too late, i.e., after one has already reached the bottom of the stairs on one’s way home from a party [Source]. L'esprit de l'escalier became Treppenwitz in the German translation, where Witz was used not in the sense of "joke," but in the sense of "cleverness" or "wit." But that meaning has become, by now, secondary to "joke" and along with this, a Treppenwitz came to be understood not as a clever retort thought of too late, but as something that looks like a bad joke in retrospect. When you hear someone speak of a Treppenwitz in present-day Germany, you can be sure that the latter is the intended meaning.

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]

Words of the month: Sippenhaft, Sippenhaftung

Word of the Month: Index

A Sippe is an extended family, a clan. Haftung means "liability" and Haft "imprisonment" or "confinement." Sippenhaft and Sippenhaftung refer to the principle that every member of a clan can be held responsible for any crime committed by another clan member. It was practiced in the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries and is also known from other cultures. It is fundamentally in conflict with the modern notion that individuals can be punished only for acts they committed themselves, which did not prevent the Nazis from reviving Sippenhaft as a means to terrorize the population. [Source]

Why do I bring up this seemingly outdated notion? It’s because I see Sippenhaft, in a vastly extended form, at work wherever I look. For example, the Boston bombers explicitly justified their actions against Americans with the claim that (other) Americans had committed crimes against Muslims. Conversely, more than one Sikh was murdered in the aftermath of 9/11 by an American who considered wearing a turban and a beard a sure sign that someone was a Muslim. In both examples, the killers were willing to ‘murder the innocent,’ and this makes this modern form of Sippenhaft so repulsive to me. In traditional societies that subscribed to Sippenhaft, the member of a clan who committed a crime or who was aware of a crime committed by a relative knew, at least, what was coming, whereas the spectators at the Boston Marathon did not.

Sippenhaft in its extended form becomes grotesque when one realizes that a person typically belongs to more than one group. Take me as an example: I’m male; I’m German; and I may be perceived as being a Christian. This may make me simultaneously the target of certain feminists; of people who suffered under the atrocities committed by Germans all over Europe during WWII; and of radical Islamists. Never mind that I oppose patriarchy in all its forms; abhor the German war crimes; and am appalled by the conduct of Western powers in the Muslim world, from the Crusades to recent times.

Learning a Foreign Language Through Poetry

Guest post by Laraine Flemming
Laraine's text is longer than my usual posts and therefore opens in a new window.

I wholeheartedly agree with her assessment of the value of memorizing poems, not only to assist in learning a foreign language, but also to make you appreciate the finer points of your own language. I believe I have an ear for the rhythm and melody that can be achieved in a text, and I think one reason is that we had to memorize poems in school and recite them aloud. That way, I started to see the expressive potential of different meters and to the present day, I 'hear' the sentences that I write down. I attribute this directly to my experience with reciting poems.

To me, the claim that one doesn't learn anything from memorizing poems is dubious, to say the least. It's just one of the many ways in which education has been dumbed down over the last decades based on spurious claims that do not hold up to scrutiny.

Word of the Month: Unglücksrabe

Word of the Month: Index

A Pechvogel was the first 'compound creature' I drew and posted on my blog. I'm finally getting around to giving him a companion in misery. Unglück is the opposite of Glück (good fortune, luck), and we encountered a Rabe (raven) already in connection with Rabeneltern. Like a Pechvogel, an Unglücksrabe is a person who has run into some misfortune—he and a Pechvogel are partners in bad luck.



The most famous Unglücksrabe in German literature is Hans Huckebein, the anti-hero of a story told in pictures by Wilhelm Busch. I have to do some more research to find out why ravens are associated with bad luck in this expression.

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

Word of the Month: Buchschmuck

Word of the Month: Index

We know by now that a Buch is a book. Schmuck means "jewelry", both the precious stuff you possess and the stuff you use to accessorize your person. The Schmuck in Buchschmuck is of the second kind: It's the sum of the graphical elements that have been added to a book's pages to enhance the status of the book as an artifact—the decoration of the title page; the special treatment of the first letters of a chapter etc. These features are not to be confused with illustrations intended to support the text—they have a practical purpose, Buchschmuck has not, in the narrow sense. It does not contribute to our understanding of the text, but it may contribute significantly to our enjoyment of the book as an object—it makes it more precious. I show, as an example, on the left the title pages of the edition of the Grimms' fairy tales that motivated me, in second grade, to teach myself the old-fashioned font called Fraktur in German.



I must confess that I have not seen the term Buchschmuck used in a long time. It sounds old-fashioned, harking back to a time when books were objects that could be considered precious. Are these days gone? Or, to put it differently, could eBooks have Buchschmuck? More generally, could they become carefully-crafted objects to be appreciated as such? I see no reason, in principle, why they couldn't.

Wagner Heralds the Arrival of May

If April is the cruellest month, May is the loveliest, at least for those who—like my wife and I—were born in it. This is how Siegmund rapturously celebrates its onset (and his re-unification with his twin sister, Sieglinde) in the first act of Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), the second opera in Wagner's Ring Cycle:

Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond.
In mildem Lichte leuchtet der Lenz...

Winter storms gave way to the Month of Joy.
Spring glows in a soft light...

The link I'm giving above is to a concert version—I didn't like the staged versions I found on YouTube because I did not like the staging (or the tenor's knödeln—seeming to press and sing through his nose). Instead, I show below part of the panel depicting the scene in P. Craig Russell's graphic retelling of the opera.


[Source: P. Craig Russell, The Ring of the Nibelung, Volume One, 2002. © P. Craig Russell. Used by permission]

Word of the Month: Die Kampfsau, das Kampfschwein

Word of the Month: Index

Just in time for the beginning of the most exciting phase of the soccer year in Europe—The final stages of the Champions League and European League competitions:

Kampf means "fight," a Sau is a sow and a Schwein a pig. Kampfsau and Kampfschwein are terms used in sports, particularly soccer, where they are applied to players who may be technically limited, but more than make up for it by their unflagging fighting spirit, by the abandon with which they risk, not life, but certainly limbs, fighting for the ball and tackling players on the opposing team. And if their jersey is not the dirtiest at the end of the match, they know they haven’t given it their best effort.

Calling someone a Sau or a Schwein in German is an insult, and a relatively bad one. But in combination with Kampf, these words turn into compliments: Kampfsäue and Kampfschweine (those are the the plurals) tend to be fan favorites.



I wonder how speakers of languages that avoid consonant clusters will deal with Kampfschwein, which requires one to enunciate 5 consonants in a row: m • p • f • sch (same as English "sh") • w.

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

Word of the Month: Torschlusspanik

Word of the Month: Index

I was reminded of this word when Kathleen Kiesel Cozzarelli sent me an e-mail inquiry about it, and it is a very useful word indeed. Tor means "gate" (or, in soccer, "goal"); Schluss can mean many things—in the present Word of the Month, it stands for "closing"; and Panik is the same as English "panic". In combination, they refer to the intense anxiety one feels when a decision has to be made before an approaching deadline, but none of the available options looks in any way promising. The term is also used to explain why a hasty decision was made under these circumstances.

Back in the days when women were supposed to get married, Torschlusspanik was regularly used to explain why a woman who was fast approaching middle age would marry someone below her status. Times have changed, and for the better in this case. For decades, I haven't heard the term applied to women marrying later in life. But it's used regularly in other situations, for example, when just before the end of the annual trading period for players, a soccer team that needs to improve at certain positions acquires players who may not be particularly skilled at these positions, or are past their prime, but were the only ones still available.

Three Literary Parodies and an Homage

I've finally found the time to collect, in one place, the literary "finger exercises" occasioned by the MOOC (massive open online course) "Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World" I took in the summer of 2012. The course was taught by Prof. Rabkin of the University of Michigan. COURSERA provided the supporting software and infrastructure.

Three Parodies and an Homage

People who do not have first-hand experience with a COURSERA-based course may not get the insider jokes in the Alice piece. But the rest does not rely on such knowledge—you just have to know the literary piece being skewered/paid homage to.

Word of the Month: Pleitegeier

Word of the Month: Index

Pleite means "bankrupt" as an adjective and "bankruptcy" as a noun. A Geier is a vulture. In combination, they may denote a person who has gone bankrupt or the precarious financial situation an enterprise finds itself in, like in the sentence, "Der Pleitegeier sitzt auf dem Dach." (The Pleitegeier is sitting on the roof.)

The term derives from Yiddish plejte gejer—"bankrupt goer," i.e., someone who went bankrupt. Folk etymology turned the gejer into a Geier. [Sick 2012]


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

How to Pronounce German "ch"

There is quite a bit of misinformation out there on the web when it comes to the way German speakers pronounce "ch," a digraph (pair of letters representing a single sound) that appears very frequently in German words. So, let me set the record straight (follow the link below).

Main page

Wild Things... now available as iBook

And if I may say so myself, it looks great in iBooks on the iPad. iBooks Author, which I used to produce this version, makes it easy to add bells and whistles (like audio clips as pronunciation aids):
Preview

Word of the Month: Verlegenheitslösung

A Verlegenheit is a difficulty one may find oneself in, tinged with a whiff of embarrassment, and a Lösung is a solution. In combination, they indicate a solution that is less than ideal, the result of necessity rather than choice—there simply was no better alternative available. The so-called fiscal cliff deal we were treated to two days ago looks very much like a Verlegenheitslösung to me—nobody is happy with it, but something better was not doable, and everybody has some 'xplaining to do to their respective constituents.

In Germany, I find the term used particularly often in connection with personnel decisions, like when a coach names someone to a team only because the usual starter or substitute is injured. The whiff of embarrassment comes into play because the implication is that the team does not have enough depth to field a better replacement. It's this whiff that distinguishes a Verlegenheitslösung from what's called in English a stop-gap solution. In addition, it may not (temporarily) stop a gap: A less-than qualified cabinet member, who was a Verlegenheitslösung when appointed, may last for the entire term of a government.

Pronunciation:

Word of the Month: Index

Word of the Month: Schmierfink

Word of the Month: Index

A Schmierfink is a close relative of a Schmutzfink, whom we have already encountered (WoM Nov. 2010). Schmieren means to "smear," "daub," or "spread messily." A Schmierfink may do this literally by disfiguring a wall with graffiti or figuratively by spreading false accusations in print, like yellow journalists do.

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

Word of the Month: Schnapsidee

I figure, after what we went through with Sandy, a little lightheartedness is in order. Schnaps (one "p"!) is any hard liquor, and an Idee is an idea. Put the two together and you have an idea that could have originated only in an inebriated brain. It's a bad idea, but one of the less consequential kind: Trying to potty-train your cat may be a Schnapsidee, the invasion of Iraq was not—it was something much worse.

Word of the Month: Index

Word of the Month: Rabeneltern

Word of the Month: Index

Raben (plural of Rabe) are ravens and Eltern parents. In combination, they refer to parents who neglect, if not abuse, their children. If you want to refer to a bad mother or bad father individually, you can use Rabenmutter or Rabenvater, respectively.

These words are common in German, although they do give ravens an undeservedly bad rap. When one finds little ravens outside their nest before they are able to fly, it's not, as people thought, because their parents wanted to get rid of them, but because they are safer there from predatory birds like hawks. [Sick 2012]

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

National Anthem of Herland

Another parody on occasion of the MOOC I'm currently taking: This is a spoof of a classic of feminist literature, Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (to be sung to the melody of Woody Guthrie’s “This land is your land, this land is my land”):

This land is her land, this land is my land,
Between high mountains we are an island,
A land of gardens, without male wardens.
This land was made for her and she.

A land of mothers, a land of sisters,
We need no brothers, we need no misters.
Parthénogenésis is our thesis.
This land was made for her and she.

If ever men came, we will not blame them.
We’ll keep them locked up, and train and tame them,
To mate with reason, only in season.
This land was made for her and she.

Word of the Month: Karteileiche

To continue with the bureaucratic theme started last month (and to provide some light summer fare): A Kartei is a card catalogue (from Karte - card), and a Leiche is a corpse. Put together, they indicate someone whose membership in some organization has expired, but whose name has not yet been removed from the organization's files. The term is no longer restricted to collections of physical cards—it can be applied to electronic databases as well.

Note on pronunciation: The stress is on the second syllable, and the "ei" in both Kartei and Leiche is pronounced like English "eye" or the "ie" in "tie": car·TIE·lie·chah.
See my post of Jan. 2013 on how to pronounce the "ch" in this case.

Word of the Month: Index

Hitherto Unknown Letter from Van Helsing to Mina Harker

To all fans of Dracula: You'll be thrilled to learn that a hitherto unknown letter from Van Helsing to Mina Harker has been found (Bram Stoker did not know it and therefore could not include it in his book):

My dear Madam Mina:

When we make ash of the King-Vampire and gather around ourselve to say our fare-byes, I not have opportunities of private speak with you. So I write this letter to express my most deep thinkings.

Our poor Miss Lucy only know how look pretty and how say the suitors yes or no. You, on the other side, know more—you can short-hand, you can type-write . And oh! Your braveness! When you hear Mr. Harker be ill in Budapesth, you not hesitate! You travel, all by your selves, to the land of wild Magyars and bring home Jonathan—and make also husband!

When you hear the Un-Dead be inside of London, again you not hesitate. You open type-writer and type diary in wholeness, and in triplication!, in one hour—I still not know how you do it—and become partner of our deliberates.

Some of times we men be not the most bright stick on candle. So, we think Madam Mina are weaker sex and go visit tomb of poor Miss Lucy without of her. Thencetofore you be alone, and the Un-Dead come, and suck neck of you, and leave red hicky. But you not panic—you keep ears stiff; fear not grip you in his vices; and you fight, fight, fight!

I never have see you cry, but I have see men, big men, make wet your shoulder with tears of theirs. Howeverso we exclude you out again almost from voyage to the Transsylvania. But you put down your feet and say no! And we must accept and make partner from you in fullness. Thank to God! Under hypnosation you can tell the about-wheres of the Count and, at the last, not hesitate accompany with me to his forbid castle—what steel of nerves!

When I see you, Madam Mina, I see new woman, nay, I see my she-hero!

Affectionably yours,

Abraham Van Helsing

Parallels Between Rumpelstiltskin and The Merchant of Venice

Here are my latest musings triggered by the Coursera-based course I'm currently enrolled in:
Parallels Between Rumpelstiltskin (Rumpelstilzchen) and The Merchant of Venice

Note to readers not enrolled in the course: It's a massive open online course (MOOC) offered by the University of Michigan. The title is Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, the Modern World. The video lectures are given by Prof. Eric S. Rabkin. The first unit dealt with the Grimm Brothers and the fairy tales they collected.

Otto Ubbelohde—Illustrator of the Grimms' Fairy Tales

Otto Ubbelohde is the most famous of the German illustrators of the Grimm's fairy tales. What distinguishes him from everyone who came before and afterwards is that he located the scenes he chose to depict firmly in the region of Hessen, where the Grimms lived and where they collected most of their tales. When Ubbelohde shows, e.g., Briar Rose's castle (shown on the left) or Rapunzel's tower, he draws real buildings that exist to the present day (and, needless to say, get much publicity out of this connection). I also believe that the altar he shows in his drawing for Cat and Mouse in Partnership is a real altar in a real church (even if the tomb cover he shows depicts the artist himself). And the women, when they wear their Sunday finery, wear the traditional folk costumes of the region

I think this realism extends to the figures in his drawings. For example, the robbers shown in the image accompanying my last post appear to be portraits drawn from life—in fact, the young robber in the middle foreground has a face that also appears in other drawings, like in the first picture he shows for The Brave Little Tailor—there may have been a lad who modeled for these portraits. I'm also, and particularly, enthralled by the care with which he depicts animals in their characteristic postures.

None of this would amount to much if he were not a draftsman of the first class—he was. His line is clearly influenced by Art Nouveau (Jugendstil), which makes his drawings more than just faithful renderings of what he observed.

An edition with the complete drawings can be purchased on amazon. My one quibble with this edition is the translation the editor chose to go with the drawings. I can elaborate on this in the comments if someone is interested.

Talking Animals in the Grimms' Fairy Tales

I'm taking right now a massive open online course (MOOC) offered by the Univ. of Michigan using the Coursera support software. The course title is Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World. The first unit dealt with the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales, and each student had to submit a 270-320-word "essay" (more realistically, a few paragraphs that do not amount to anything deserving the name "essay"). Anyway, we're talking about two famous Krauts, and I'm showing below my submission (expanded by a few words beyond the 320 word limit).

A distinct feature of the Grimm tales (and folk tales in general) are repetitive narrative patterns and recurring motives. Among these, talking animals are particularly prominent. I am drawn to such stories because I like animals. More importantly, I’m intrigued by tales with talking animals because many of them can be viewed as little morality plays, not in the sense that they have a pat moral, but in the sense that a moral issue is at stake, if in a playful manner. For example, trust and the betrayal of trust are at the heart of Cat and Mouse in Partnership.

A subclass of the talking animal stories deals with farm animals. I know from my own experience (I lived for four years in a small rural village) that these animals often have a hard life, and it must have been even harder at the time the Grimm tales were told. When an animal was no longer useful, it was disposed of unceremoniously—beaten to death, or drowned, or beheaded and eaten, as the dog, the cat, and the rooster, respectively, lament in The Bremen Town Musicians. In the latter story, and in Old Sultan and, to a lesser degree, The House in the Forest, these exploited creatures receive a voice and are allowed to take their fate into their own hands. By teaming up, they manage to outwit their masters. The loyalty the animals show among each other contrasts with the disloyalty exhibited by humans—the animals prove, in the end, to be the “better people.”

A further appeal of these stories is that the moral lesson, if there is one, is not treated in a heavy-handed manner. There is much humor in them—Old Sultan, in fact, ends in a burlesque as the toothless dog of the title and a three-legged cat manage to win a duel against a wolf and a wild boar, both perfectly healthy, who turn out to be veritable cowards. And The Bremen Town Musicians is distinguished by a humorous tone sustained throughout.

BTW The image is by my favorite Grimms illustrator, Otto Ubbelohde, who deserves a separate post.

Word of the Month: Amtsschimmel

Word of the Month: Index

A Schimmel is a white horse, and Amt denotes, in this context, a government office. In combination, they refer not to a bureaucrat as a person, but to bureaucracy as a sometimes baffling phenomenon. When you are confronted with some bureaucratic absurdity, you may say, "Der Amtsschimmel wiehert (whinnies)." A fine example is given by the foreign student who tried to enroll at the University of Vienna, but could not do it because he did not have a residence permit and could not get a residence permit because he was not enrolled at the university. [Beikircher p. 314]

Now, what does a beautiful animal like a white horse have to do with bureaucratic excess? Nothing, it turns out! Schimmel derives, by way of folk etymology, from Simile (Latin for "similar"), a term used in Austrian offices to refer to a boilerplate form from which other forms could be generated. It came to stand for the enthusiasm with which forms are embraced by some bureaucracies and for their sometimes unfathomable ways in general. [Source]

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

Word of the Month: Armutszeugnis

Armut means "poverty", and a Zeugnis is a certificate or, in an educational context, a report card. Armutszeugnis referred originally to an officially recognized proof of poverty entitling the holder to certain types of government aid like legal assistance in a law suit. Nowadays, the term is used exclusively in a figurative sense: When we speak of an Armutszeugnis, we mean that a certain action (or lack thereof) is proof of somebody's glaring inadequacy with respect to a stated goal. It indicates an embarrassing gap between intent and result and can be viewed as a damning indictment of a person or group.

I find the term very useful, for example, when I contemplate the action or inaction of certain politicians or political parties, and since I know of no exact equivalent in English, Armutszeugnis is a term that comes to my mind rather often these days.

Note: The "s" between the two components of the term is a Fugen-s ("gap s"). Its function is to make the transition between the "t" and "z" easier to pronounce. The "eu" is a diphthong and sounds like the "oy" in "joy."

Word of the Month: Index

Euro 2012

I've arrived in Germany and will watch the competition with my knowledgeable brothers and friends. I will describe my impressions as the drama unfolds and invite readers to join the conversation.

A few remarks up-front on the mood here when it comes to the chances of the German team. Last year ended on a high when Germany convincingly beat the Netherlands in a friendly 3:0. Together with the impressive way in which the side had played during the qualifiers, where they won 30 matches in a row, this victory generated an almost boundless optimism in the country. However, this mood has become much more guarded because of a series of setbacks that happened since the start of 2012. The team lost two friendlies, first to France at the beginning of the year and then to Switzerland, where the second loss was particularly embarrassing. In both matches, the defense (which used to be the strong suit of German teams in the past) proved vulnerable and even now, two positions in the back four (the Viererkette - chain of four - as it's called in German) are still open, an unheard of situation for a German team. [See also my post from last December!]

True, the Bayern Munich players who form the backbone of the German side were missing from the team that lost to Switzerland. But this is small consolation because the psychological makeup of these very players suffered a severe blow when they lost the final of the Champions League, the most prestigious annual team competition in Europe, to Chelsea of England on May 19. The Bayern players were clearly in shock afterwards because they had been the better team throughout the game and gave the victory away on several occasions, most spectacularly in the final penalty shootout. The whole nation is asking itself: Did the Bayern players have enough time to get over it and be at their best again only a few weeks later?

If we look at the bright side (remember, I'm in the Rhineland where one always looks at the bright side!): It's these very questions that create a palpable sense of suspense in the country now that the competition is about to start.

Word of the Month: Landpomeranze

Word of the Month: Index

Word of the Month: Index

Land means, in this connection, "countryside" (as the opposite of "city"), and a Pomeranze is a Seville or bitter orange (the one used in making marmalade). Hitched together, they refer to a girl or young woman from the countryside who has not yet learned how to behave like a city slicker. In particular, her unfashionably rosy cheeks betray where she came from.



Nowadays, the term can be used as a putdown of provincials of either sex. English "hayseed" has pretty much the same meaning.

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

Wild Things now available as paperback ...

... at the Create Space store.

I've now explored self-publishing using various venues: iBooks Author and Kindle Direct Publishing for digital books; and Create Space, an Amazon affiliate, for the above paperback version, which will be sold also in the Amazon store. Since most of the material was readily available through work I had done before, I could concentrate on the technicalities of the software platforms I had to use, rather than worrying about content. This helped me greatly in my efforts; i.e., it kept me sane;-)

Found Art Around the World now an iBook

Finally, more than two months after I submitted it, the iBooks version is also available!

And if I may say so myself, it looks great on an iPad;-)

Word of the Month: Oberlehrer

Word of the Month: Index

Sie wissen nichts, aber wissen alles besser. (They know nothing, but know everything better.) Comment by Czech students after being visited, during the anti-Soviet revolt of 1968, by a delegation of students from West Berlin, who had immediately proceeded to lecture the Czechs about everything they were doing wrong.

A Lehrer is a teacher. Ober, as a prefix, can mean several things. In front of geographical names, for instance, it means “upper”, as in Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria). In front of words indicating a profession, it indicates a senior rank. Thus, an Oberlehrer is a senior or head teacher. The position no longer exists in the German educational system. But the word remains very much in the language as a derogatory term for an obnoxious know-it-all who lectures and corrects people, even when he was not asked to do so, and tends to do this in a tone veering between smugness and condescension—the infamous Oberlehrerton. (I use “he” because I never met a female Oberlehrer.)

I have a particular dislike for Oberlehrer types because of what my wife and I experienced when we were living in West Berlin during the 1970s. She is American, and the Oberlehrer (the plural is the same as the singular) in the left-liberal milieu I used to move in tried their best to make her life miserable. As soon as they learned she was an American, they would launch into long (and largely uninformed) lectures about everything that was wrong with her country. We reached a point where we wouldn’t go to parties anymore and decided, in the end, to move back to the US (where we had met as graduate students).

All of this was vividly brought back to me a week ago when I posted an announcement about my latest ebook, Wild Things in the German Language (see column on the right), on an (American) blog targeted at Americans interested in learning German. I did not know that it was also a playground for German Oberlehrer. No sooner had I posted my announcement than two of them started to chastise me for the bad English in my book. This came as a surprise to me because my English tends to get compliments from Americans for its clarity and grace. And sure enough, when I looked at the particular complaints I received in a lengthy e-mail from one of the Germans, I realized they were all wrong—no, not all of them: I had misspelled “scaredy cat” in my book—so shoot me!  [more in my first comment]

Apparently, blogs have given Oberlehrer an entire new venue to regale people with lectures they did not ask for. My advice: Avoid those blogs because you cannot argue with Oberlehrer—they are loath to admitting mistakes and always try to have the last word.

PS.  Clearly, this post is longer and more heartfelt than my usual Word-of-the-Month posts—I hope readers will understand the reasons why.

Addendum (3/5/2015) for people able to read German. I just read an article that reflects on the love affair between social media and German Oberlehrer: Diskussionskultur im Netz. Deutschland, eine Belehrtenrepublik. I agree!

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.