The painting "restoration" at the end of the article is hilarious! (OMG I hope it's just a joke.)
Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need
41–50 of 119 posts
Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need
#42What about "worseprovement"
Isn't the English word more or less "regression"? If you want to coin a new word, how about updowngrade?
Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need
#43It's actually a verb, "Verschlimmbesserung" is the substantivization. Base: verschlimmbessern Present conjugation: I verschlimmbesser[e], you verschlimmbesserst, he/she/it verschlimmbessert, we verschlimmbesser[e]n, (plural-)you verschlimmbessert, they verschlimmbesser[e]n Past/perfect: verschlimmbessert (e.g. "it got verschlimmbessert") Imperative: verschlimmbesser[e] (e.g. "don't verschlimmbesser that!") The [e] at…
Would there be a semantic difference between Verschlimmbesserung and Verbesserschlimmung?
Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need
#44„Verschlimbesserung” is what your spouse thinks about each of your improvements to the home automation setup, or, indeed, the whole idea of home automation.
Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need
#45Office 2003 is a terrible example, office is a product that deliberately makes one part worse on each "upgrade" so that the consumer has a reason to upgrade to another release.
Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need
#46I would probably abbreviate that to v17g.
Ironically, that would be an example of Verschlimmbesserung.
Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need
#47What about "worseprovement"
I prefer “misprovement”, as in “misfeature”.
Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need
#48German here. A "Verschlimmbesserung" is something that makes one part better and another part worse. If it only makes things worse you don't need a German word for it, you can just call it worse. For things that were intended good, but ended up bad, there's an English idiom: the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
My understanding is that a Verschlimmbesserung stems from a genuine intent to improve something, even though it ultimately has the opposite effect.
I don't remember hearing or using it in this context. It's pretty rare that the goal was to make something worse and if the outcome is only bad, you can just call it bad, right? The word is only needed to communicate that there were good and bad outcomes.