Word of the month: Angstgegner

One reason why a foreign word enters the vocabulary of a language is that this vocabulary does not have a word or expression with exactly the same meaning. Examples of German words that have entered English apparently for that reason are Gestalt, Zeitgeist, Weltschmerz or Schadenfreude. Examples in the opposite direction are "fair play" or "common sense".

[In parenthesis: Right now, German is experiencing an outright invasion of English terms, some of which are used--for whatever reasons--to replace perfectly adequate German terms; for example, there is no reason in the world to speak of a "game" instead of a Spiel in German. But this issue and its ramifications--endlessly discussed in German blogs--do not concern us here.]

Each month, I will identify a German word that has entered--or could/should enter--English for legitimate reasons, i.e. there does not appear to exist an exact English equivalent. Given the prominence of soccer news this month, I select Angstgegner (lit. "anxiety opponent") for June. The word is used in German sports to denote an opponent a team tends to lose to on a regular basis, even if the odds would predict otherwise. Given Croatia's win yesterday over a favored German side, together with Germany's 0:3 loss against Croatia in the quarterfinals of the 1998 World Cup and the fact that Germany always seems to struggle against them, Croatia can now be considered Germany's Angstgegner.

Word of the Month: Index

Euro 2008

The European Soccer Championship 2008 will start on June 7 with the match between Switzerland and the Czech Republic. I'll travel to Germany to be closer to the action, perhaps even catch a game live in Austria, one of the host countries (together with Switzerland). I hope this will be a lively thread throughout the tournament (which ends on June 29) and that I will be able to contribute from over there.

For starters, here are the four groups in the preliminary round:
A: Switzerland, Czech Republic, Portugal, Turkey
B: Austria, Croatia, Germany, Poland
C: Netherlands, Italy, Romania, France
D: Greece (the def. champion), Sweden, Spain, Russia

Conspicuous by its absence is England, basically b/c of a chronic weakness, goalkeeping. Their goalie managed to lose the decisive match in the qualifying round against a team (Croatia) already qualified.

In the preliminary round, the teams in each group play each other, round-robin fashion. A win gets you 3 points and a tie 1 point. The two teams with the most points in each group advance to the quarterfinals (I'm not going into the tie-breaking rules here). Group C is generally considered this year's "group of death"--it is indeed a pity that at least one of the perennial European power-houses (Italy, France and the Netherlands) will not make it past the first round--and Romania is no slouch, either. I also think that Germany's group is stronger than the Germans want to believe.

So, let's see what happens...

Tristan und Isolde

Live from the Met!

"Ich bin ein Berliner"

There is a persistent rumor in English-speaking countries that President Kennedy made a terrible gaffe in a speech he delivered in 1963 in what was then West-Berlin when he said (in German) "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner). According to the rumor, he said, in fact, "I am a jelly donut" b/c "Berliner" is short for "Berliner Pfannkuchen" (Berlin pancake). The claim is that he should have said "Ich bin Berliner" (i.e. leave out the indef. article "ein").

Well, this is utter nonsense, and the first time I heard the story, my reaction was: How silly! "Ich bin Berliner" means "I was born/grew up/live in Berlin" (i.e. it's the same as "I am from Berlin"), which is certainly not what Kennedy wanted to say. What he did say was grammatically and idiomatically correct--the association with jelly donuts is far-fetched, especially since Berliners do not call the things "Berliner", they simply call them "Pfannkuchen". I am sure that no one in the crowd of tens of thousands who listened misunderstood the sentence.

A friend of mine was there and told me that people were standing on each others' feet b/c it was so crowded, but that excitement was so great that he noticed only when he got home that his feet were bleeding. My own association with the event is much less direct: My (American) wife and I got married in the same city hall (Rathaus Schöneberg) from where Kennedy delivered the speech.

Fink

The issue has come up whether "fink" in slang has something to do with German "Fink"--the German word for "finch." The dictionaries on the web I have looked at (quickly) claim that the origin of fink is unknown, but my German dictionary suggests something interesting: It lists under "Fink" not only the primary meaning, the songbird "finch", but also a slang meaning, "tosher". Now, I have never heard of "tosher," but this is what my friend Wiki says: "A tosher is someone who scavenges in the sewers, especially in London during the Victorian period." This is interesting b/c German "Dreckfink" means a dirty person who loves to play in the mud. This suggests to me that English "fink" may actually have something to do with German "Fink". But then again, why hasn't someone found this out yet?

More on the Ode to Joy

We follow-up on stuff from the Hello World thread

Schlegel vs. Coleridge

We have a topic--scary, actually.