German Word of the Week: Geisterspiel

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The German word Geist: is there anything it can’t mean? Spirit, mind, intelligence, ethos. And, of course, ghost. But in addition to describing literal ghosts, it also describes things which are metaphorically “ghostly”: weird, eldritch, alarming, or just not quite right.

Which brings us to “ghost games”: major sporting events played without crowds. In these plague-addled times, German Bundesliga teams are now playing “ghost games”, and the experience is so odd that the German football association seems likely to simply cancel (g) the whole season.

There are many more uses of Geister, though. Someone driving the wrong way on a highway — something which seems to happen with baffling regularity in Germany — is a Geisterfahrer. A deserted city is a Geisterstadt. One of my favorite German expressions is von allen guten Geistern verlassen sein — “abandoned by all good spirits”. It’s an attractively medieval way of saying someone’s nuts.

And who knows? If Coronavirus mutates and kills us all, maybe we’ll all be wandering through our cities as Geister.

German Word of the Week: Pointendichte

A few days ago a friend and I, in a state of complete sobriety, were comparing television sitcoms from the 1970s and the present day. The biggest contrast is the frenetic pace of modern sitcoms. The chart above shows how much faster-paced The Simpsons became during its early years. Nowadays, in any reasonably well-written sitcom (I’d cite Archer, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, The Office, Rick & Morty, Brooklyn 9-9, but of course YMMV)*, nary a minute goes by without 10-15 rapid-fire separate jokes. They can’t all be zingers, of course, but as long as the average quality is high enough, it hardly matters: you’re a deer in the headlights of comedy, dazzled and delighted by a remorseless cavalcade of whimsy!

I consider this progress: Using bleeding-edge humor techniques, TV writers now give us 3 times the laughter for the same amount of money and time. And believe it or not, German has a word for exactly this: Pointendichte. You pronounce the first half of the word Frenchified: “Pwanten”; the second half is the German word for “density”. Pointe (g), obviously a loan-word from French (let’s hope they don’t ask for it back, baDUM-tss), doesn’t mean joke, strictly speaking, more like a witty observation or clever jab. But that’s splitting hairs. So Pointendichte literally translates as “joke-density”. But sounds much classier.

English should consider adopting this word. It will be a hard sell because it’s not easy to pronounce. But still, it’s a crisp, efficient, and stylish way of describing something that doesn’t have a word in English.

And to end this post, my favorite joke — or Pointe, if you will (and you will) — from The Simpsons:

German Word of the Week: Witzelsucht

This is both a German and and English word of the week. Here’s the English Wikipedia entry:

Witzelsucht (German: “joking addiction“) is a set of pure and rare neurological symptoms characterized by a tendency to make puns, or tell inappropriate jokes or pointless stories in socially inappropriate situations. It makes one unable to read sarcasm. A less common symptom is hypersexuality, the tendency to make sexual comments at inappropriate times or situations. Patients do not understand that their behavior is abnormal, therefore are nonresponsive to others’ reactions. This disorder is most commonly seen in patients with frontal lobe damage, particularly right frontal lobe tumors or trauma.

The Wikipedia article goes on forever, even including case studies:

Case #1: A 30-year-old, right-handed man was admitted to the department of neurology for irritability, inappropriate behavior, and morbid hyperphagia with obesity. His inappropriate laughter and persistent pun and joke telling was a sharp contrast to his personality as an intellectual theological scholar, known for his exceptional memory as opposed to his sense of humor. This behavior was generally prompted by environmental stimuli such as physician’s rounds or blood sampling. To the patient, his behavior seemed normal, which explains why he remained nondiscriminating toward his jokes, their context, and their impression on those around him.

I scoured the Internets for clips of people actually suffering from witzelsucht (no capitalization in English), but I found only sarcasm and mockery:

Apparently, people seem to have a problem taking joking addiction … wait for it … seriously.

For an example of an even rarer condition, see this heartbreaking case study, dramatized by English actors:

 

German Word of the Week: Schneckenkönig

Yesterday I biked near Lake Unterbach south of Düsseldorf and noticed something white in the path. It was this snail:

This is a Roman or Burgundy snail in English, in German they’re called Weinbergschnecke: vineyard snail. These big, juicy bastards are common here (these are the snails from which escargot is made), but I’d never seen one with this light coloration before, perhaps it’s an albino, but I’m no malacologist. I posted it on Facebook, and one of my friends there said it looked at first like it might be a Schneckenkönig — a “snail-king”, but wasn’t.

So of course the question became: what in tarnation is a Schneckenkönig? And lo and behold, I found another German word that, if you trust Wikipedia (g), has no equivalent in any other language. A Schneckenkönig is a snail whose shell (Haus in German, ain’t that cute?) twists counter-clockwise, instead of clockwise. In English, this is known as inverse chirality, which is not very fun to say.

Left-coiling snails only occur about 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 1,000,000, so their title of ‘snail-king’ is well-deserved. Apparently there are people who devote a lot of time (g) to searching for one of these elusive beasts.

But even ordinary snails are electrifyingly bizarre creatures. Let Isabella Rossellini explain how:

German Word of the Week: The ‘Knapsack’ Mystery

As I found out returning from a weekend in Luxembourg, Knapsack is a town in Germany. It’s also a common word for a backpack in English, as in the notorious “knapsack of white privilege“, or the “knapsack problem”. Yet Knapsack is not the word for backpack in German — the modern German word is Rucksack.

So many mysteries: Why is the English word for a kind of backpack, ‘Knapsack’, in reality a German word? When did it first enter English? Did Germans ever use it? If so, why did they abandon it? What is the significance of the fact that there is a town in Germany named Knapsack? Was the Knapsack invented there? Which came first, Knapsack the bag or Knapsack the town?

Anyone have any ideas?

German Words of the Week: Renaturierung and Eisvogel (Spring Birdsong Bonus)

Four years ago, the city of Düsseldorf undertook a project of Renaturierung — literally, “re-naturing”. This refers to taking land which was being used for agriculture, quarries, buildings, or perhaps nothing at all, and allowing it to revert to a more natural state. In this case, the land was the Urdenbach Marshes, a wetland area on the southern edge of Düsseldorf. The Rhine river changed direction long ago, and the area between the old course of the Rhine and the new course became a wetland frequented by many bird species. Then, in the 1950s, housing was built in the area, a dike was built to prevent the summer flooding of the wetland and create a pedestrian path

In 2014, a project began to restore the wetland (g) by opening up the dike in two places and building bridges and other amenities to preserve the pedestrian path:

Was the project successful? Judge for yourself. Yesterday I rode my bike to the marshes, picked a spot, and made a short film. It lasts about 5 minutes. I count at least 10 different kinds of birdsong, some of it downright deafening. If you just want the highlights, a kingfisher (Eisvogel, or “Ice-Bird”, in German) hovers and strikes at 4:12. Enjoy:

 

German Word of the Week: Retortensiedlung

A while ago, I needed to get a document from one of the “citizens’ offices” (Bürgerbüros) in Düsseldorf. There are about ten of them. You request an appointment online, and get pointed to whichever office can give you an appointment the soonest. This time, it was in the neighborhood of Garath.

Yes, Garath. At the mention of these two syllables, Düsseldorfers will hear ominous string music — or perhaps a song from a band with a name like Nahkampf or Erschießungskommando.

Garath is a neighborhood at the very southern tip of Düsseldorf, a 13-minute S-Bahn ride from the center. It’s the dark-gray bit in this map of Düsseldorf. Its basic design was laid out in 1959 by the notorious (and notoriously auto-friendly) Düsseldorf architect and city planner Friedrich Tamms (think of him as the Robert Moses of Düsseldorf) as a planned community of medium-rise apartment buildings, 8000 apartments capable of housing 30,000 people. Because it was largely a designed community, critics call it a Retortensiedlung — a test-tube town, as opposed to a neighborhood which grew up organically. Tamms’ plan, with many modifications and additions, was realized in stages during the 1960s and 1970s. The overall style was mild Brutalism, described (g) as an “explicitly solid and respectable style which affords no room for architectural experiments or reforms.” In other words, cheap buildings for workers.

Today, Garath is a solidly working-class section of Düsseldorf. It’s mostly white, with a percentage of foreigners of only 12.5% (g), well under the city’s average of 19.2%. There seemed to be a strong Eastern European and Russian presence — they wouldn’t affect the foreigner percentage, since many of them would be Russians or East Europeans of German descent (g), who are entitled to German citizenship.

Garath has a reputation as one of the social burning points of Düsseldorf, a cluster of sterile pre-planned buildings stuffed with the resentfully unemployed. There are stories of rabid football fans, right-wing violence, mass fistfights, urine-soaked undergrounnd passages, the whole nine yards. But people from Garath tend to be loyal to it. It ain’t fancy, but it’s nowhere near as dangerous or desolate as its reputation. People know each other and help each other, and there’s plenty of green space and even a small castle (g).

Garath city center is like a small throwback to the idea of a socialism-infused, egalitarian model of German society. There are large paved squares with benches where local day-drinkers can soak up the sun:

There are also funky small modular orange shops under the train overpass, looking as if they were plucked straight from 1974. One of them houses the “Altschlesische Speisekammer” (The Old Silesian Pantry), a which sells Polish food, including delectable sausage:

There’s a bunch of government offices right next to the main train station, and right next door, a “Leisure Center”, made of modest red brick, where people can go spend time for free, or at least a modest fee. This building was designed by Olaf Jacobson in 1974. It’s made of interlocking cubes of different sizes stacked on top of and next to one another, faced in handsome red-brick. Inside, pathways lead from one modular cube to the next, creating interesting, inviting spaces.

When I stopped by the auditorium, there was a group of at least 80 old ladies settling into their seats for some sort of concert. The local library branch is located inside the building, and offers this inviting reading nook:

On the side of the leisure center is a quote from Heine about Old Düsseldorf’s funky nooks and crannies:

Of course, there’s an ice-cream parlor:

And a little bit of urban decay:

But also delectable fruits right across from it:

And a bar next to the train station with this oddly charming…whatever it is:

And is there public art? Yes, the “Sunwheel” by Friedrich Becker, erected in 1976 (obviously):

Behind it you can see the housing blocks typical of Garath. They’re nothing special, but at least they’re not Corbusian nightmares. Facing the train tracks, there’s “Countdown”, by Hans-Albert Walther:

There’s too much concrete in the heart of Garath, a common problem with 1960s and 1970s town planning. But still, there are some interesting buildings, and a bit of funky pre-planned quasi-socialist charm. Infinitely worse things have come out of test tubes.

German Word of the Week: Machtwort

Here’s a headline from the German daily Die Welt: “Impeachment? Democrat Pelosi speaks a Machtwort“.

I provided no translation because there isn’t one. A Machtwort — literally “power-word” is a word that only someone in power can speak. It’s something like a command or order, usually with a specific purpose: to shut down debate among underlings once and for all.

This word needs to be transferred into English. However, it’s a bit too hard to pronounce (“mocht-vort”). Thus, as Ohrwurm became earworm, we’re going to need to finesse Machtwort a little bit.

First we ditch the voiceless velar fricative in the “ch”. This sound — something like a cat hissing, transposed down an octave or two — is notoriously difficult sound for non-German speakers to make. So we’re going to just turn it into “mocked”.

Why keep Macht instead of just going with the English “power-word”? Because we want it to sound at least a little German. After all, the Machtwort is concept built on authority imposing order through intimidation, and what could be more German than that?* Plus, Macht is such a common German word that many English speakers will have at least some familiarity with some form of it, from the notorious “Arbeit Macht Frei” to the Yiddish term macher, for “big shot”.

We’re just going to turn Wort into “word”, though. No need to overdo things. So I propose that people start using “Machtword” in English:

“The chatting students were silenced by the teacher’s Machtword.”

“Listen, your ideas have been stimulating, but time’s pressing and we need to move on. Machtword!”

When people ask you what you just said, tell them it’s the hippest new concept from Germany. Maybe add a slight trace of a condescending sneer that they don’t already know about it.

German Word of the Week: Fundschlange

The German for find is finden, and the past tense is gefunden. Carve out the middle 4 letters of gefunden, and you have fund. Which doesn’t mean fund in English, that word, in “German”, is Fonds, pronounced the French way, since it’s a French loan word (g). Oddly enough, Fonds, in German, is a singular masculine word, even though it has an ‘s’ at its end: “I invested in a Fonds.” Go figure.

Fund is one of those German prefixes which can be attached to almost any word — in this case, to describe something which was found. The lost and found office is a Fundbüro (find-office), and the objects stashed in it are Fundsachen (find-things). Fundkind (find-child) is one German name for a foundling. I can’t be sure (little help, anyone?), but I suspect the English word “findspot” might be derived from the German archeological term Fundort. These words, by the way, are called Determinativkomposita in German.

And now back to the image above. It’s from the Munich Reptile Rescue Center, and describes the woeful condition of a Fundschlange (find-snake) brought into the center by the Unterbiberg Fire Department. The poor bastard had been chewed on by rats, but is expected to make a full recovery.

And in case you’re wondering, a rescue dog is, in fact, a Fundhund (“foond-hoond”) (g), which is one of those German words which gets funnier every time you pronounce it.

German Word of the Week: Thingstätte

This GWOW amuses English-speakers because it begins with a false friend. But then it gets very German, in all senses of that word.

A ‘Thing‘, Wikipedia tells us, was “the governing assembly of an early Germanic society, made up of the free people of the community presided over by lawspeakers.” In other words, a sort of proto-parliament, usually held outdoors at a symbolic grouping of stones or large tree (perhaps a Gerichtslinde or “court linden”). There are very few records of Things left, and few ruins which can be positively identified as Thingstätte (Thing-places, pronounced approximately TING-steh-tuh). Nevertheless, they were important institutions — many Scandinavian parliaments have some form of the word “ting” in their official title.

But Germanic Thingstätte had a disturbing second life, as with so many things Germanic. The völkisch movement in Germany, and later the National Socialists, decided to revive the ancient tradition of the Thingstätte. The new versions weren’t supposed to be parliaments, but rather outdoor gathering places where the faithful could assemble to revere nature, the Germanic soul, and other nationalist topoi*.

Party groups, or the Hitler Youth, would assemble at the Thingstätte for Thingspiele, multi-disciplinary events which might feature torchlight processions, speeches by academics or ideologues, choral singing, patriotic dramas, sporting contests or similar collective celebrations of things young, healthy, vigorous, and Teutonic. Nazi-era Thingstätte in Germany — of which 400 were planned, but only 40 built, are often huge, with oval-shaped amphitheaters with seating for thousands, usually set on hilltops. This means they’re quite hard to get rid of, and still generate controversy, since they are massive and indelible reminders of the Third Reich. They attract visitors from the unsavory right-wing fringes of German society, as well as from people who want to revive ancient Germanic traditions such as Walpurgisnacht (there is some overlap between those groups, but it’s far from 100%). I once visited perhaps the most famous Thingstätte, in Heidelberg, and saw only yuppies jogging up and down its steps.

And today I just learned, from the magnificent ars publica düsseldorf** site, that Düsseldorf had its own Thingstätte, way off in Gerresheim, a working-class suburb in the eastern part of the city. It was built in 1935, partly as an employment-generating measure for World War I veterans. Now, it’s pretty much completely abandoned, and surrounded by privately-owned houses:

It included a big 220-step path up a large hill, at the top of which was a massive boulder with a memorial inscription. I bet a ruined Thingstätte would be pretty interesting to visit (after getting necessary permissions, of course), so it’s now at the top of my list of things to see and do in this endlessly-fascinating city.

German Word of the Week: Zwiebellauch

The other day I dropped by Pizzeria Cemo, one of Düsseldorf’s best, where the pie has the thin, crispy crust. The owner sings merrily (as merrily as Turkish songs ever get) while preparing your order. I scanned the menu:

Tuna fish, calzone, and then “Boring Pizza”.

Let’s look at what makes this pizza “boring”. The first ingredient is Pastirma. Pastirma (g) is dried beef. It was originally invented by Turkic nomads, who hung specially-prepared cuts under their saddlebags to dry as they rode in the desert. It may well be the origins of Pastrami, which was brought by Romanian Jews into Europe. Although only the shape is similar; pastrami is not dried.

The next ingredients are mushrooms and artichokes, which are boring enough. But then comes Zwiebellauch. Odd: I can’t figure out exactly what Zwiebellauch (onion-leek) is in English. There’s no entry for it at the LEO website. There’s only one entry for it at linguee, which is pretty startling. They call it “chives“, but I don’t think that’s right.

Wikipedia re-directs you to Winterzwiebel (winter onion), one of whose alternate names is Lauchzwiebel — but not Zwiebellauch.

So what the hell is Zwiebellauch anyway? Little help here?

Also, why is this pizza boring? I asked the owner, but he only smiled. I’d say an exotic delicacy from the Inscrutable Orient™ and an unclassifiable mystery vegetable makes this the most exciting goddamn pizza on the menu. But what do I know?

German Word of the Week: Reanimieren

Here’s a headline from Austria about an accident during a youth outing. A boat capsized, and two girls were rescued from drowning and resuscitated:

The German word for resuscitation is “reanimate”. Which makes me think two things:

1. That’s a lot less fussy and pretentious than “resuscitate”.

2. H.P. Lovecraft would approve.