Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My favourite German word

vurt.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 96 posts

Re: My favourite German word

#21

Post by leecommamichael »

I loved this article.

My fiancée recently remarked that she'd been doing more writing on paper because it made her more productive. She theorized that she takes an editor's mindset in the face of WYSIWYG renditions of her spelling mistakes. The same goes for her design work. The industry tools make it too easy to recognize "wrong" as it's happening. That sounds like a singing endorsement of these tools, but our experience working with lower-tech tools has informed a different conclusion. You're not being "helped" to see "wrong" in what you do, you're being cut off. Your generative, creative mode is being inhibited.

Re: My favourite German word

#22

Post by jjtheblunt »

card_zero wrote: post #17
llopium wrote: post #9

That’s great, but gegenstand just means object, and that definition of object is part of English, e.g. “The object of having this talk is to learn about how we can do better.” You don’t hear that said much anymore, but in the 20th century it was said fairly regularly.

Object has "against" in it, that's the ob- part. The other part is "throw". The German comes from the Latin. (Why did they go for -stand instead of a word for throw?)

What do you mean the German comes from the Latin?

Re: My favourite German word

#23

Post by card_zero »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #22
card_zero wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Object has "against" in it, that's the ob- part. The other part is "throw". The German comes from the Latin. (Why did they go for -stand instead of a word for throw?)

What do you mean the German comes from the Latin?

For instance here: https://www.dwds.de/wb/etymwb/Gegenstand

Gegenstand is in the middle of the page: "lat. obiectum", it says - "translation of Latin obiectum into philosopher-speak".

Re: My favourite German word

#25

Post by usr1106 »

jhoechtl wrote: post #24

Aufstand, Unterstand, Verstand, Umstand. In german we have some of those -stand words.

Abstand, Widerstand, Vorstand, Mittelstand, probably the list can be continued.

Some seem to have an obvious explanation, for other it feels long-sought and more obscure. I would not over-interpret words.

Re: My favourite German word

#26

Post by FlyingSnake »

usr1106 wrote: post #25
jhoechtl wrote: post #24

Aufstand, Unterstand, Verstand, Umstand. In german we have some of those -stand words.

Abstand, Widerstand, Vorstand, Mittelstand, probably the list can be continued. Some seem to have an obvious explanation, for other it feels long-sought and more obscure. I would not over-interpret words.

Verstanden!

Re: My favourite German word

#27

Post by Dilettante_ »

LouisSayers wrote: post #10

Fremdschämen is a good one. My favourite though: Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher. It's one of those things that you never knew you needed.

>Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher

That's not actually what they're called, it's an overly descriptive contrived way to get a long word, like "Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän". Imagine someone in english saying "Ink-to-paper-writing-implement" instead of "pen".

You'd call it an "Eieröffner"(Egg opener) or "Eierköpfer"(Egg beheader).

Re: My favourite German word

#28

Post by FearNotDaniel »

card_zero wrote: post #17
llopium wrote: post #9

That’s great, but gegenstand just means object, and that definition of object is part of English, e.g. “The object of having this talk is to learn about how we can do better.” You don’t hear that said much anymore, but in the 20th century it was said fairly regularly.

Object has "against" in it, that's the ob- part. The other part is "throw". The German comes from the Latin. (Why did they go for -stand instead of a word for throw?)

Once you get into learning German, it’s surprising how many compound words like this are actually direct translations of the Latin or Greek roots of the same English words. Hydrogen = Wasserstoff (water material); television = Fernseher (distance seer) and so on. It’s almost as if they had their own uncleftish beholding moment.

Re: My favourite German word

#30

Post by WalterBright »

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #28
card_zero wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Object has "against" in it, that's the ob- part. The other part is "throw". The German comes from the Latin. (Why did they go for -stand instead of a word for throw?)

Once you get into learning German, it’s surprising how many compound words like this are actually direct translations of the Latin or Greek roots of the same English words. Hydrogen = Wasserstoff (water material); television = Fernseher (distance seer) and so on. It’s almost as if they had their own uncleftish beholding moment.

The rocket fuel for the Me-163 Komet is T-Stoff and C-Stoff. A fuel leak would dissolve the pilot.
Post reply on HN