Erklärungsnot? Ruinenlust? Kummerspeck? Fremdschämen?

Question

There is a YouTube video, which claims the German language has unusually precise words for feelings that other languages may require whole paragraphs to express...and I recall both Marianne and O'Tink are fluent.

So, Erklärungsnot is "explanation distress;" anything from how we feel when we are caught with our hand in the cookie jar, to how we feel when we realize we don't have any explanation for the big questions of life. In other words, a kind of existential angst.

Ruinenlust is a passion for visiting ancient crumbling ruins, for the sake of the pleasing melancholy we feel at the passing of all things.

Kummerspeck is "sorrow fat"...when you eat and eat to soothe your distress, and NOTHING can help except comfort food.

Fremdschämen is the distress you feel in empathy for a friend who becomes ashamed of something...

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I already knew Weltschmerz, also Weltanschauung, having identified with THOSE from childhood...do you have a favourite compound word, any language, that precisely identifies one/some of your own human feelings?

 

Answer 1

Yes, I think it has a lot to do with the German penchant for compound words.

The list left out Schadenfreude, but I guess that's practically an English word by now, that everyone knows.

I think Mark Twain gave a humorous example of German compounding: Oberlandesbaudirektionsassistent, if I remember correctly.

Comments

Actually O'Tink, Schadenfreude WAS on their video...and they gave a dimension of meaning for it that was softer than my own understanding of the word...it was actually me who omitted it, just because yes, it is prolly almost an English word by now...

btw, I am still thinking about the snippet you posted the other day, Orson Welles...the subtle ominous ambience he conveys so well...the evil Medicis and all the Renaissance advances, vs. the 500 years democratic peaceful Swiss and their cuckoo clocks! (German would prolly have or build a word for such a phenomenon...)

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@ Virginia,

I don't know of such a word in German. Maybe Marianne does.

The concept the nearness of death spurring creativity even found it's way into Max und Moritz.

In one of the cruel pranks, the dying chickens "each still quickly lays an egg, and then Death comes by."

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Moritz! Explored that name with Marianne the other day, English form Maurice, derives from the Moors...

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A better one for you, T(h)ink:

http://www.sprachlog.de/2013/06/05/das-neue-laengste-wort-des-deutschen/

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Virginia, are you referring to "Schadenfreude" or to epicaricacy, as a synonym?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/epicaricacy

Further, about the longest word in German:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10095976/Germany-drops-its-longest-word-Rindfleischeti....html

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Marianne, I had never heard of epicaricacy, who knew that Schadenfreude would EVER have a synonym? 

As for Germany losing its longest word of 63 letters, well I can remember as a child when (back in the Stone Age pre-Google) I dug out the fact that ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM was the longest word in English...

Well no more, that is just a baby word now!

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Oh yes, I remember that - lol.

There's also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

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Marianne you found it!!! We worked with that word on Ask.com, discussing long words...but I had forgotten it...back then and now too, I DID go through sounding it out and even pronouncing it out loud...

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Lol - it looks much like a tongue twister; I remember that on former Sodahead, long words were cut in half or less, and ended with dots, so, we had to enter, such words in divided several segments to see them entirely, like Pneumono-ultra-microscopic-silico-volcano-coniosis ...

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Well, the hyphens make it easier to sound out and pronounce, Marianne!

Answer 2

Wow, Virginia, hats off!

I added some other terms, starting with the "crazy idea" (Schnaps stands for booze):

Schnapsidee: http://www.dict.cc/german-english/Schnapsidee.html

Dunkelziffer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_figure_of_crime

Geschmacksverirrung: http://www.dict.cc/german-english/Geschmacksverirrung.html

Dornröschenschlaf: http://www.dict.cc/?s=Dornr%C3%B6schenschlaf

Fingerspitzengefühl: http://www.dict.cc/?s=Fingerspitzengef%C3%BChl

 

Nachhaltigkeit (already mentioned in 1713): sustainability (in French "durabilité")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachhaltigkeit

Comments

"eine Schnapsidee sein"...to be a dead duck? Oh Marianne that is so funny!

Dunkelziffer? As a 'dark figure of crime'...? Marianne as you know to an English-ear, the sounds of German words can be humorous, and that one is almost like onomatopoeia! Is there a verb form...dunkelziffing? What would it be, dunkelzifferüng?

Those are fun, and funny...Fingerspitzengefühl as tact? YOU should make a YouTube video with some of these great words...

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Lol, Virginia - not exactly:

You'll have to use "sein" (to be) for the "idea" itself, i.e. "Das ist eine Schnapsidee!" standing for "This is a crazy idea!" As to "Dunkelziffer", which is a composed word, you cannot use it as verb, but "Ziffer" has a verb form, i.e. "beziffern" https://www.dict.cc/?s=beziffern

Yes, the meaning of "Fingerspitzengefühl" is tact, flair, instinct, ... 

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Well, German is beautiful and it's earthy and it's fun/funny too!

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Lol - each language has it's treasures - and its funny words.

Take, for instance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratatouille

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratatouille_(film)

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Oh Marianne yes, I love the pronunciation of Rat-tat-tooey...also like eating it, it's made with eggplant I am quite sure you already know...

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Lol, Virginia, of course, it is quite popular here; after all, the eggplant is one of the many vegetable plants, (with zucchini, peppers, tomatoes), formerly imported from the Americas.

An excellent, light summer dish:

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Marianne, is French your first language? And then German the second? As well as English? You are truly a remarkably talented linguist!

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Lol, Virginia, I am considered as a bilingual; I spoke French first, but had to learn German very early in childhood. As to English, I learnt it at a girl's high school and, after the diploma, in England for a bit less than one year and a half (Lower Cambridge and Royal Society of Arts, as I opted for literature). After that, as I had to work as an office employee, I learnt further for myself and added Italian, thanks to an organised car tour in Northern Italy, as all the other passengers did not even understand the bases of Italian, when we had lunch in Aosta (supposed to be francophone, but all the waiters were from South Italy, and none of them knew one word French, or English - lol). Well, I became a translator by learning - lol.

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Marianne that is utterly marvelous, I envy you!

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Lol - it was not easy, and girls were not really encouraged to study and/or to be creative; I had hard times with German Grammar as a little kid, as by then we were taught to learn complicated rules by heart (without understanding them) - lol. So, I became a bookworm - lol.

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Marianne, even though I know only one language I still learned most of it from books, and I still tend to talk kinda like a book...Internet and Q/A websites have been helpful, however, because now I even try to write in slang forms...it has been fun!

But learning German grammar...it seems I recall there are two forms, 'high' German and less formal 'low' German? Books were prolly very helpful for you, I would guess ...?