Verz-wotzit means to engorge large amounts of chocolate in the midst of utter despair. Peppermint, energy, or fruit and nut, verz-thingy fatly comforts.
I don’t myself find huge solace in chocolate. Alcohol’s my thing, and I do see how if your dog dies, you’d polish off a bottle of (say) Gordon’s, in which case the Germans, masters of creating the compound word, would come up with Verzweiflungordonskonsum.
The Germans are famed for convoluted words which sound as if birthed by rotund committees.
The wages of German public servants are set out in a regulatory document that is flatulently titled the Bundesbesoldungsordnung. Back in 1999, a group of the higher-paid Bundies created a new law which specified the exact circumstances in which an authority monitoring the labelling of beef could delegate such authority to another. They managed to stuff all that information into just one word: Rindfleischetikettierungsuberwachungsaufgabenubertragungsgesetz.
That mouthful is possibly 63 letters long, and (I think) 20 syllables. Its clumsy over-reach may also sum up the European Union’s bureaucracy.It’s easy to mock these stout compound German words. Too many sound like a beer hall accident in which the flugelhornist trips over the flautist and up-ends the waitress.
But we should also give this language praise when due. The Germans invent words to cover thoughts the English language won’t come to grips with. This may require a certain Germanic directness.
For example, you have a ‘‘sort of partner’’ who is neither spouse nor significant other, but rates higher than a one-night stand. Lebensabschnittpartner politely infers that while this partner is presently here, they may or they may not be long term.
Some other words from our Best of Germanic Thought: Ohrwurm – literally, ‘earworm.’ A tune you can’t get out of your head.
Handschuhschneeballwerfer. A bloke who puts on his mittens (handshuch = handshoes) before throwing snowballs. This is more tragic than ‘wimp.’
Kummerspeck — ‘‘sorrow bacon.’’ Flab gathered by depressive overeating.
Erbsenzahler — a sadsack who counts the peas on their plate. A nitpicker, perhaps also a miser.
Sturmfrei — the freedom of not being watched by your parents. Its ‘‘while the cat’s away, the mice will play,’’ but efficiently reduced to a single word.It’s widely conceded the Germans deserve special praise for the word schadenfreude, as it has the balls to verbalise the unsayable. This word admits our readiness to take malicious joy from the misfortune or humiliation of others.
Most humour is cruel, with schadenfreude at its heart. It’s when we’re in groups we tolerate the nastiest schadenfreude. Vince Sorrenti, the Aussie stand-up comedian, had a classic line which could only work with an audience into its third jug.
‘‘I saw this cripple unloading his wheelchair in the car park,’’ he’d tell his pub audience.
‘‘So I punched the bastard — the sod had parked in one of OUR spaces.’’
You wouldn’t even smirk at that in polite company, but in the safeness of a bar, we laughed like drains.
Schadenfreude is sweetest when the mighty fall into the shark tank. People delighted in the humiliation of Tiger Woods — it was media-fed mass schadenfreude. Harvey Weinstein’s deep disgrace is only partly enjoyed because of virtuous reaction to his #MeToo outing — what we truly adore is seeing a rich Casanova put back in the place we think the fat and ugly belong. That’s nasty — its schadenfreude.
Donald Trump? The world awaits his downfall. But our schadenfreude would be greater if the takedown also paid him back for his sexual preening. Perhaps we’d like him cuckolded — and not by Brad Pitt, but Forrest Gump.
We all have schadenfreude in us, and there are examples you need to be very brave to admit to. I had an ancient journo friend — Charlie McCarthy — a man so Irishly kind that when called up for jury service, his mission became making sure no soul was convicted.
One night in the pub, the discussion turned to the concept of schadenfreude. Charlie, a Digger who’d fought the Japanese in New Guinea, gave us this deeply personal illustration.
‘‘We charged the Japs, and at least six of us were mown down. They were my mates, and do you know what I felt? I felt elation, the purest joy. I was over the moon that it was my friends got killed, not me.’’
I assure you that Charlie was a magnificent man. But schadenfreude is rather like original sin. We’re born with it. And it is significant that it’s the German language which has the honesty to grant the feeling a word.
- John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
