It's Better to Travel than Arrive?

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive"

Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, 1881.


"Robert Louis Stevenson speaks utter tosh and has

obviously never flown long haul economy class"

Kristy, first ever blog post, 2011.


Monday, February 13, 2012

Germany Needs ... (Not Suitable For Work Viewing)



Hey, I didn't say it, but apparently "Shitstorm" is the latest English word to be adopted into the German language.  Check out the article below:-


Germany needed Shitstorm, according to a group of language experts who elected the word as the top English contribution to the German language last year. 
The “Anglicism of the Year” jury defined Shitstorm as a public outcry, primarily on the internet, in which arguments mix with threats and insults to reach a critical mass, forcing a reaction.
“This new kind of protest is clearly different in kind and degree from what could be expected in the past in response to a statement or action,” said jury member Michael Mann, who runs a language website called Lexikographieblog.

The jury said in a statement on Monday: “Shitstorm fills a gap in the German vocabulary that has become apparent through changes in the culture of public debate.” 

It added that established German words, such as Kritik (criticism), were simply not descriptive enough.

Shitstorm came into widespread use last year in connection with the financial crisis in Greece and the plagiarism scandal which forced the then Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg to resign.

The second most important Anglicism this year was Stresstest, referring to the analysis of banks’ financial strength during the European financial crisis, the jury decided. 

Rounding out the top three was circeln which comes from the new social networkGoogle+ and means to add someone to a contact list. 

The Anglicism of the Year contest, organised since 2010 by University of Hamburg linguist Anatol Stefanowitsch, is designed to recognise English’s contribution to German as the language evolves. 

"The borrowing of words is a natural process that occurs in any language," the jury’s statement said.

The big winner in 2010 was leaken, which was adopted during controversies such as the sensitive leaking of government information to the Wikileaks website. 

3 comments:

  1. Today one of my German colleagues asked me how to correctly pronounce "love-bombing".

    ?????

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In what context where they going to use it? Next they'll all be saying "Let's hug it out". And that's when I buy my ticket out of here!

      Delete
    2. Ok, apparently colleague's wife is a teacher and this word came up in English class and the students accused the teacher of pronouncing it incorrectly.

      I'm going to try to say "let's hug it out" next time a disagreement breaks out in the R&D office here :)

      Delete

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