What's the (german?) word I'm looking for?

October 26, 2008 10:55 AM

Does this word exist? Definition: a concept that is either so large and/or complex that you cannot even wrap your mind around it, specifically in the sense that the idea/concept/whatever-are-discussing essentially can't "fit" in your brain. I believe it is a many-syllabled German word that is used in English similar to how English speakers use the terms "zeitgest" or "doppelganger".

I vaguely remember seeing this word and its explanation in a novel many years ago, so it may be a fictional word the author made up and not really exist. But I'm hoping otherwise.

A real-life example of what this word would apply to would be something like the total number of wrong telephone numbers dialed in history, or the amount of people who have actually understood quantum physics (or anything, for that matter), or the total number of one-night-stands that have ever happened in the history of the world. What these things have in common is that they are utterly and completely unknowable and potentially of a massive, mind-boggling size.

Any ideas, mefites?

posted by acehigh to writing & language (24 comments total)

might be a bit farfetched, but i think i saw a word that fits your description in "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" by douglas adams. Just an idea though..
posted by freddymetz at 11:01 AM on October 26, 2008

Mindboggling would seem a good fit.
posted by mandal at 11:05 AM on October 26, 2008

Specific German word aside (you could always go hunting on that front—unbegreiflich, maybe?), you've got a couple reasonable terms already with 'unknowable' and 'mindboggling'. I'd throw in 'incomprehensible', and 'unfathomable' as a couple other go-to choices, but there are a lot of words and short phrases that could convey this.

Do you remember anything else about the word or the context in which it appeared?
posted by cortex at 11:06 AM on October 26, 2008

The Tip of my Tongue website could be of great help here... (and even if it isn't, a great bookmark to have!)
posted by meso at 11:08 AM on October 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

There's also 'unheimlich', which got some play in Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy, but that carries a meaning closer to 'uncanny' than 'unfathomable'.
posted by cortex at 11:10 AM on October 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

Outside Context Problem, from Iain M. Bank's novel Excession. The author's description of an OCP is almost a pastiche of Douglas Adams.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:24 AM on October 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

Thanks, y'all.
@freddymetz: I'll check that Hitchiker's Guide out again. I read it so long ago I don't remember much about it.
@cortex: I barely remember the original context, but I think it had to do with some sort of economic system, something having to do with workers earning money and where this money goes and how really knowing these money flows and really happened with the money was impossible to understand, even though some people believed it was possible to know these things [sorry, that's all I can recall :-(

Mind-boggling/unfathomable/unknowable are good words, but they don't inherently address the size/quantitative component (i.e., having to do with enormous numbers) of this word. Another way of putting this is that I have no idea what the universe actually IS so therefore it qualifies as unknowable; I also have no idea HOW BIG the universe is so it therefore it is [this mystery word] to me.
posted by acehigh at 11:28 AM on October 26, 2008

@infinitewindow: not what I'm looking for but still fascinating. Is that book worth a read?
posted by acehigh at 11:31 AM on October 26, 2008

Actually I think unfathomable does address the size component--it means "immeasurable" as well as "incomprehensible".
posted by phoenixy at 11:43 AM on October 26, 2008

@phoenixy: dang, you're right. A fathom is a length of measurement. Thanks!
posted by acehigh at 11:44 AM on October 26, 2008

So we're heading towards innumerable, multitudinous, uncountable, and incalculable rather than unknowable, or is this something that means a combination of the two things?
posted by mandal at 11:53 AM on October 26, 2008

INCONCEIVABLE!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:06 PM on October 26, 2008

acehigh, the book is worth a read, but it's part of a series. I recommend starting with Consider Phlebas.
posted by infinitewindow at 12:12 PM on October 26, 2008

@mandal: it's a combination. The part I am most sure about is that it is one of those long German words made out of a bunch of smaller words.
@infintewindow: thanks, I'll check it out.
posted by acehigh at 12:32 PM on October 26, 2008

Is it unermesslich? I'm not sure it counts as "one of those long German words may out of a bunch of smaller words", though.
posted by amf at 12:43 PM on October 26, 2008

Oh, if it's in a math context, it could be überabzählbar - too much to count. It's actually a scientific term in mathematics in German. A set is called überabzählbar if it's got more elements than there are natural numbers (positive integers). Example: The set of all integers is abzählbar, the set of all fractions is abzählbar, but the set of all real numbers is überabzählbar.

See countable - abzählbar and uncountable - überabzählbar.
posted by amf at 12:50 PM on October 26, 2008

I think I'd go with Ambrosia's "inconceivable" or cortex's "incomprehensible".

Also, freddymetz is referring to the Total Perspective Vortex in Hitchhiker's Guide
posted by miasma at 12:53 PM on October 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

"ineffable" means unable to be expressed in words. (Not an exact fit, but in the neighborhood - wikipedia on ineffability has a few nice bits you might like)
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:17 PM on October 26, 2008

I think the word you are looking for may be ineffable.

Ineffability captures the idea of something that is not simply very big or difficult to understand, but is literally beyond knowing, or at least beyond conveying in language.
posted by googly at 2:45 PM on October 26, 2008

Or, what Lobstermitten said, and I inexplicably missed.
posted by googly at 2:46 PM on October 26, 2008

I'm pretty sure "ineffable" isn't it, but that wikipedia entry (thanks lobster, googly) is eerily close to what I was trying to express. It makes me wonder if there is some German analog of ineffable. An online German dictionary mentions the following:

unbeschreiblich; unsagbar; unaussprechlich

Unfortunately, I don't know enough German to know the roots and nuances of these.

On another tack:

This discussion is jogging my memory a bit and the word "system" keeps coming to mind. Is there a word often used to describe a system (social, economic, biological, etc.) so complex it cannot be understood?

Oh, and btw, "ineffable" makes me think of something you cannot eff which is kinda funny. I'm sure someone here more clever than me can make a joke that ties all of this together :-)
posted by acehigh at 3:15 PM on October 26, 2008

n.b. "ineffable" is the word from Hitchhikers.
posted by rachelpapers at 4:08 PM on October 26, 2008

This discussion is jogging my memory a bit and the word "system" keeps coming to mind. Is there a word often used to describe a system (social, economic, biological, etc.) so complex it cannot be understood?

Complex Adaptive Systems

Non-linear Systems?

Dynamical Systems?
posted by miasma at 6:51 PM on October 26, 2008

"unbeschreiblich; unsagbar; unaussprechlich"

Respectively indescribable; unable to be said; inexpressible. None of those words denote incomprehensibility: those are all things you can't put into words, not things you can't understand. (These would all be good words when translating H P Lovecraft, by the way).

I'm with the "inconceivable" people. Which in German is "unvorstellbar" or "undenkbar".
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:34 PM on October 26, 2008