Feb. 16th, 2006 04:21 pm
German Word-of-the-Day for Owlet: Day 11
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muckefuckdie Umständlichkeit "fussiness"
In a recent Gallup poll (so take that for what it's worth), 6% of respondents to the question "Was ist Ihrer Meinung nach typisch deutsch?" replied with "Umständlichkeit". That's not the only way in which this is a "typically German" word; it's built up from smaller elements according to common derivation processes.
Working backwards, we can see the abstract ending -keit, a variation of -heit (cf. English -hood) used after the adjectival endings -lich and -ig. -lich often ends up tacked on to nouns, as in ehrlich (die Ehre "honour; honesty"), herzlich (das Herz "heart"), and the world-famous gemütlich (das Gemüt "mind, soul"). Strip it away and we're down to die Umstände, the plural of der Umstand "case, circumstance, factor" (e.g. entscheidender Umstand "deciding factor"). Its parts are um "about, around" and der Stand "condition, status", but it's possible it derives from an obsolete verb *umstehen or something. (I'll know more after I've looked it up properly.)
Be that as it may, in colloquial use the plural noun has acquired the connotation of "bother, trouble, fuss"--which goes some to explaining why umständlich means what it does and not something more neutral like "circumstantial". Was this too complicated and roundabout a way to explain the meaning of a simple word? Perhaps; but--as the Germans say--Warum einfach, wenn es auch umständlich geht?
In a recent Gallup poll (so take that for what it's worth), 6% of respondents to the question "Was ist Ihrer Meinung nach typisch deutsch?" replied with "Umständlichkeit". That's not the only way in which this is a "typically German" word; it's built up from smaller elements according to common derivation processes.
Working backwards, we can see the abstract ending -keit, a variation of -heit (cf. English -hood) used after the adjectival endings -lich and -ig. -lich often ends up tacked on to nouns, as in ehrlich (die Ehre "honour; honesty"), herzlich (das Herz "heart"), and the world-famous gemütlich (das Gemüt "mind, soul"). Strip it away and we're down to die Umstände, the plural of der Umstand "case, circumstance, factor" (e.g. entscheidender Umstand "deciding factor"). Its parts are um "about, around" and der Stand "condition, status", but it's possible it derives from an obsolete verb *umstehen or something. (I'll know more after I've looked it up properly.)
Be that as it may, in colloquial use the plural noun has acquired the connotation of "bother, trouble, fuss"--which goes some to explaining why umständlich means what it does and not something more neutral like "circumstantial". Was this too complicated and roundabout a way to explain the meaning of a simple word? Perhaps; but--as the Germans say--Warum einfach, wenn es auch umständlich geht?
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