*ahem*

[lirazel]

Dear German language,

I love you and the fact that you have a word for everything. I also love that when there's not a word for something, you make one up by smooshing already-existing words together. I hope we get tons more loan-words from you (schadenfreude is one of the most useful words in the world!), but I hope we steal this one from you next:

fremdschämen: cringing embarrassment for the actions of others

What English says with seven words, you say with one.

SO. USEFUL.

It describes why I can't watch The Office or America's Funniest Home Videos and why I can't be friends with that one--very nice girl--from high school who I have a lot of common interests with but who makes me wince whenever she's around.

Thank you!

Umarmungen und Küsse,

Lauren

P.S. You are also the most fun language in the world to sing in.

Comments

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Every language is better than ours!

That looks really gorgeous, actually. With all the umlauts.

[ruuger]

If you think that's gorgeous, how about epäjärjestelmällisyydellänsäkään or riiuuyöaie. Or maybe atomiydinenergiareaktorigeneraattorilauhduttajaturbiiniratasvaihde ;)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I still think they're beautiful! Though unwieldy! What do they mean?

[ruuger]

The first one is not really a 'real' word that anyone would actually use (and I actually mispelled it - it was supposed to be "epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkään"). It was created by some language professor or someone to see how long can you make one word with nothing but prefixes and suffixes and means something like "not even with his/her ability to avoid being made unorganised by others".

The other two are real words, though. Riiuuyöaie means "a plan to go courting someone in hope of getting laid" and the last one is the name of some part in the turbine of a nuclear power plant :)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Haha! How fun!

"a plan to go courting someone in hope of getting laid" I am so glad that word exists somewhere! Fantastic!