The Predictables

[muckefuck]

Yesterday, I snuck back into Saturday's entry and added two more German words that belatedly occurred to me, durchkomponiert and Putzwahn. I like what cpratt says about Fachidiot; I don't think "idiot savant" is a good equivalent, even if--as mollpeartree points out--people do informally use it with that meaning.

I'm getting around to reading some of the reviews in last week's Onion and I was amused by this quote from the review of Lansky's Outwitting history:

The argot of a displaced people, assembled from bits and pieces of Old German, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, French, and the Slavic lands where the Jewish diaspora wandered in the second Christian millennium, Yiddish.

I'm not sure what the heck "Old German" is supposed to be, but I'm more taken with the implication that Yiddish is flecked with bits of chernozem and podzol. (I can't imagine our eagle-eyed editor rollick letting a sentnce like that stand, so I'm assuming she had nothing to do with this one.)

Believe it or not, we made it to the cinema yesterday. I can now say that monshu is the first person I know not to love The Incredibles (and it's MY FAULT since what he wanted to see was The Ben Franklin Code, but I thought I'd rather have an ear removed; now princeofcairo's review has me reconsidering). The only bit he really enjoyed was the ersatz Edith Head, by far the most entertaining character in the film. (Not that I don't love the demented fanboy villain, but I know whose place I'd rather go to for tea.) To end, as I began, on a pedantic linguistic note, "Munciberg" set my teeth on edge. Berg is a mountain; Burg is a town. That they are homophones in English is no excuse for confusing them.

Comments

[rollick.livejournal.com]

I did in fact let that sentence stand; I did a little random net-research on the origins of Yiddish, but for the most part, I don't change assertations of fact like that in book reviews, since they're assumed to come from the book being reviewed. If the book's wrong about such a thing, obviously it's a reason not to read the book.

Oh, and this eagle-eyed editor would like to point out that you misspelled "sentence."

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the book, but I've read other articles from Lansky. I'd be very surprised if he made the factual error of asserting that Yiddish is composed of "bits and pieces of...Slavic lands" rather than the languages spoken in those lands--or, conversely, that the Jewish diaspora wandered through the abstraction calleds "Latin".

[rollick.livejournal.com]

Fuck. You're right.

Of course, if you'd said that in English, I might have had some idea what you were talking about.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Take away my intellectual obscurantism and what does that leave me with to cover up the offensive nakedness of my prose?

[rollick.livejournal.com]

Comprehensibility.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Y'all should thank your lucky stars every time a new entry appears and it's even mostly in English!

[keyne.livejournal.com]

To end, as I began, on a pedantic linguistic note, "Munciberg" set my teeth on edge. Berg is a mountain; Burg is a town. That they are homophones in English is no excuse for confusing them.

Actually, "Munciberg" would be a mountain in Muncie, Indiana. You mean Municiberg. :-) And yes, I had the exact same reaction when I spotted the signs in the film. Geeks of a feather...

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was a little relieved, since at first I thought "Municiberg" was only the name of the bank and I didn't know how to read that as other than an anti-Semitic dig.

[d3l1r1um.livejournal.com]

Being completely ignorant of linguistic things, I enjoyed the movie a bunch. Twice -- went to see it again on a mini off-site with work this afternoon.

[ex-nashobabe711.livejournal.com]

Fachidiot, as I knew it in my Tuebingen days, meant someone who knows their academic field inside out, but doesn't have the sense to come in from the rain. It was typically used in close conjunction with Orchideenfach (usually used plural, Orchideenfaecher), which in the US would include ALL of th ehmuanities... "orchid majors" are exquisitely beautiful, but completely useless int he world of practical living or earning an income or even in landing a job, post-university. I consider my major, Comp Lit, to be the quintessential Orchideenfach -- almost helpful in landing work as a taxi driver, and certainly nothing above that in complexity or status or usefulness.

Among some such German words of my personal coinage, my favorite, -- Konsumwahn, as a euphemism for "going shopping at the mall"/shopping madness.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

BTW, monshu worked Orchideenfach into conversation over the past week--THREE TIMES! (He had to ask for help pronouncing it every time, though.)

[ex-nashobabe711.livejournal.com]

I just "friended" monshu ... so I can see how his German compound vocabulary builds...!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

You'll be disappointed: He and I are polar opposites when it comes to posting! He does, however, resemble his icon more closely than I do mine.