Some people love words, where they come from, how they related to other words. Because I forgot that word for this, I had to look it up and they're called logophiles (from the Greek logos=word and philos=loving). Or, alternately, they're called a linguaphile and lexiphile.
I'm not a logophile per se, but words are interesting. Especially, their connections are interesting. In recent months I've learned a few new words, including non-English words. They are intriguing to the English-only me. Here are my words:
German words
gleichschaltung = This word has a rather sinister etymology. I'm not sure if it was started by Nazi Germany, but it was used heavily then. It means to have everything aligned in a single message. Apparently the word refers to electric circuitry where all switches are inline with one another. They can all be turned on or off with one switch. "Gleich" means "same" and "schaltung" means "circuitry."
For the Nazis, they wanted everything in their propaganda empire to have a unified and aligned message. I know, not nice, but effective and powerful. Thankfully, that period of history is over.
For today, it does make me wonder if gleichschaltung is still around either as planned coordination or inadvertently where messages simply come together organically. Particularly, I think of the news montages where suddenly, like within a day of a news event, news outlets and politicians seem to have a very unified and aligned message. Or, they use very similar, or exactly the same, wording and phrases. I tried to find a good example, but could only dig up this audio recently regarding the Israel-Iran "fragile" ceasefire, go to the 2:27 mark of https://www.noagendashow.net/listen/1776. Is that wording mere coincidence?
verschlimmbessern - is to make something worse by trying to make it better. I first saw this word used online by a coder. This makes perfect sense. Anyone who has ever worked with computer code knows this drill...your program is working fairly well, but you want to make a small tweak, you tweak, and suddenly you've broken everything. You made it worse by trying to make it better = verschlimmbessern.
It's difficult for me to remember these words. But, this one does have a fairly good mnemonic device built in to an English speaker. It's a compound of verschlimm (worse) and bessern (improve, or better). So, it means worsenbetter...to worsen it by trying to better it.
While looking this up, I learned the fantastic and similar word, arsle, meaning to "shuffle backward." Or, in other words, you're working on something, but regressing backward instead of making progress. The etymology of the word is crude, but hilarious. (Just think of what it sounds like in English.) For some reason, the old Laurel and Hardy skit about moving the piano suddenly comes to mind. To me, that's arsle.
waldeinsamkeit - I just learned this word while looking at verschlimmsbessern. Waldeinsamkeit is feeling loneliness or solace in the woods or forest. That sounds bad, but I'm pretty sure it is a good thing. It's that feeling, while alone in a beautiful forest, of peace and tranquility. It might be compared to "forest bathing," another term I've recently learned while hiking in a group. Forest bathing is where you stop hiking, stop talking, and purposefully pause. You listen to the forest, enjoy its serenity, soak it in. Incidentally, forest bathing comes from Japan, shinrin-yoku, which translates to forest bath...kind of nature's healing.
Other languages
faisan - This refers to a pheasant, the French faisan. I was told the phrase is "faisan de", meaning "of the pheasant" literally. But, what it really means is that something is on the edge of going bad, going spoiled. Something is "iffy", not necessarily food, just something on the edge of being not good (although I think it's usually used with food). Evidently, the term comes from how you prepare a pheasant to be eaten. In short, it must be aged. Then, just before it goes bad, that is the ideal time to cook and eat the pheasant. That time, that iffy time, is faison de.
For some odd reason, this intrigued me. I guess the idea of giving something the smell test to see if I would eat it got to me. (My general rule is...if I think I need to do the smell test, that fact alone means it has just failed the smell test.)
I looked it up and the hunting sites have the best intel on this. Pheasants should be hung up after being shot to let the meat age. The same is evidently true with beef, though it's rarely done because it's costly. The details are interesting and has several factors involved like age of the bird and temperature. There is no easy time period, but 2 to 7 days seems normal (shorter for young birds, longer for old ones). Temperature is key. The goldilocks sweet spot is between 50 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit, as I recall. Too cold is not ideal and too hot means spoilage. Further, I learned that a pheasant has an internal temperature of 105 degrees, wow, therefore shot birds should not be stacked up (this holds heat and allows bacterial growth). You want them cooled quickly, then hung to allow air flow. And, you leave the feathers in. At the just-right point, at faisan de, the feathers become "loose" and are easier to pull. That's the sweet spot of faisan de. Trouble is, if you go just a bit too long past faisan de, you're then eating spoiled pheasant meat. It's dangerous business.
compline - This word I knew, then forgot, then recently looked it up again. It refers to a Christian nighttime service. The Latin "compline" means complete, the service completes the day. A compline service is supposed to be subdued, calm and calming, maybe with calm chants or singing. It's to complete the day before bedtime.
matins - The Latin word "matine" means morning. It is a morning Christian worship service. The common word matinee is easily seen in this (though a matinee is usually in the afternoon as I know it, but, it's still the early version). And, just to add a third worship service, a vesper is a late afternoon service.
science - I knew the word science before yesterday, but yesterday I learned a few interesting fun facts about it. A quick search says "science" has its root with the Latin "scientia" meaning "knowledge"...that's clear enough. But, yesterday, I learned that if you apparently go back farther, the root of the word science means to "cut" or to "separate", like to separate knowledge from mystery. Evidently, it's also the root for the words, scissors or schism, which are obvious splitting/separating words.
I also learned yesterday that this root word is also evidently related to the word $#!+. The explanation is also crude but funny, the "s-word" evidently means to separate the waste from the living body. I'd say that's a fair assessment of the word. Read the details on $#!+ here.
I'm sure I'll forget almost all of these words, non-English words don't stick well in my brain. But, hopefully the concepts do stick, then I can look up the word again.
Image was generated at leonardo.ai
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