fremdschämen (German). “This is what occurs when you are embarrassed for someone who ought to be embarrassed for himself, but isn’t.” From Douglas Wilson, Whose Ox Is Being Sued
MadMania
Faith, Books, and Stuff
Tag: German
A German word describing an architectural eyesore (literally: “construction sin”). Or, in my opinion, all skyscrapers in any style other than Art Deco. via Better Than English, which has lots of other neat words from other languages.
My daughter found this word and sent it to me. It’s a German word “kummerspeck” that means “excess weight gained by emotional over-eating” and translates literally as “grief bacon.”
15 Year Old: She’s not very pretty. 17 Year Old: She’s German. Very German.
My favorite 4th of July memory happened the summer after I turned 12. We were over at the house of one of my Dad’s friends, a loud German guy named Bob. Bob lived in Kansas, and despite the state’s reputation for flatness, Bob lived on an amazingly steep hill. Both his front and back yards sloped […]
German word, pronounced “SHAHD-n-FROID-uh.” The literal translation is “shameful laughing,” and it means laughing at the misfortunes of others, kind of like I do in that story about Timmy’s cough.