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]