Aufstand, Unterstand, Verstand, Umstand. In german we have some of those -stand words.
Wiederstand - resistor
My favourite German word
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Re: My favourite German word
#32Ach, du lieber zeit!
Re: My favourite German word
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Specifically the pilot Josef Pöhs. Unfortunate.
Re: My favourite German word
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
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".
German has often taken terminology from Latin by translation:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:German_terms_calqued...
A nice example (of many!) is überleben, calqued from supervivere (literally, to over-live).
Re: My favourite German word
#35Earlier 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.
Not necessarily these words, but a lot of these translations stem from linguistic purism:
Re: My favourite German word
#36Aufstand, Unterstand, Verstand, Umstand. In german we have some of those -stand words.
Wiederstand - resistor https://generalatomic.com/teil1/index.html
*Widerstand
Wider = gegen (against)
Wieder = noch einmal (again)
Kinda important to get the spelling right in context of "Gegenstand"
Re: My favourite German word
#37BTW, this also kind of works in English: we notice objects around us, because they object to our intentions, just for their inert nature. It's their resistance (German: Widerstand), which brings them to our attention. (Objects are pretty much passive-aggressive. ;-) )
Re: My favourite German word
#38Reinheitsgebot
Just makes me happy.
Re: My favourite German word
#39Re: My favourite German word
#40That’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?)
-stand is what is (to something) or what has been established (about something). E.g., Bestand – the totality of what has been established about something, or what is available, etc. So Gegenstand is what has been established as real-world (or in extension also abstract) resistance to our objectives (so that we have to deal with it) – or, as gegen- is also vis-a-vis, what we are facing.
The Latin objectum has a directional vector (figuratively, it's thrown at us), while Gegenstand is much more inert. It's like a world view of active exploration versus a tableau of the world around us.