Wie Sagt Man....

March 1, 2006 10:11 AM

A long time ago, I was given to understand that there was a German word to denote "the sheer cussedness of things"...

That tendency for inanimate objects to somehow rebel against their intended use or, by virtue of their physical properties and inanimate nature, somehow frustrate the human will to use them in a kind of ontilogical corollary of Murphy's Law.

Anyone familiar with this word? Does it even exist, or have I been the victim of some perverse joke all these years?

posted by Chrischris to writing & language (14 comments total)

Is it “schreklichkeit?”
posted by metabeing at 10:51 AM on March 1, 2006

I'd translate schreklichkeit as "disgustingness" which doesn't sound quite right... could Weltschmerz possibly relate to this frustration?
posted by Rash at 11:00 AM on March 1, 2006

"Weltschmerz" is much more along the lines of world-weariness. More of a romantic depression over the nature of the world, and not really a Murphy's Law sort of thing.
posted by ubersturm at 11:09 AM on March 1, 2006

Beschissenheit? But that just means shittiness.

Maybe it'll come to me in time.
posted by Gnatcho at 12:36 PM on March 1, 2006

"verflixt" is one word that goes in that direction (this is an adjective though).

It does have that notion of Murphy's law in it, or of objects conspiring against you. You could imagine it in a sentence such as:

"This verflixte dress, it just won't sit the way I want it to!"
posted by ClarissaWAM at 1:31 PM on March 1, 2006

"verflixt" isn't in meinen Wortbuch, Clarissa; doesn't look like a valid German spelling to me. There is an entry for verflicht, however -- says it means "twisted."
posted by Rash at 1:54 PM on March 1, 2006

I doubt there is such a word; people are always making claims about foreign words meaning wacky things, often making up the words themselves. I discuss one such word here, but all those "they have a word for it!" books are full of 'em.
posted by languagehat at 2:01 PM on March 1, 2006

and "verfluchte" is "accursed" if i remember correctly but i could easily be confused.
posted by crush-onastick at 2:05 PM on March 1, 2006

Rash - verflixt definitely does exist - see here (translation), or here (German to German dictionary).

And yes, "verflucht" is "damned" or "cursed" - "verflixt" can be used in the same sense (slightly toned down). Ethymologically, verflixt could mean something like "mis-fixed" (mende, but it only made it worse), and yes the logical spelling would be "verflickt".

I'm not saying this is the word ChrisChris is looking for, and yes it may not exist. For some reason though I keep thinking that there is such a thing, and that it's on the tip of my tongue. Verflixt to me definitely carries that notion to a certain extent (even though it may not be its primary meaning), and my friend agreed. German is as good as our mother tongue (we're from Luxembourg).
posted by ClarissaWAM at 3:06 PM on March 1, 2006

mendeD (sigh)
posted by ClarissaWAM at 3:06 PM on March 1, 2006

You might be interested in the English word for it: resistentialism. The wiki stub article points to the 1948 essay which coins the term. My father occasionally used the phrase "the perversity of inanimate objects" as though it were a formula. Other phrases that popped up in my googling were "the malice of objects" and "the hostility of things." I saw some French ("Les choses sont contre nous") but no German.
posted by stuart_s at 7:59 PM on March 1, 2006

A German friend of mine suggests:

It might be "das Eigenleben der Dinge", "Dinge entwickeln ein Eigenleben". That doesn't include directely the sense of things being against you, but that inanimate things sometimes seem to develop "activity", and mostly they behave then according to Murphy's law. For Murphy, they call it "Regel über die Perversion der Natur".
posted by willem at 10:38 AM on March 2, 2006

I should read the links that I post. There's a German word referenced in the essay I linked: Dingenhass. It's a made up word just like resistentialism. While resistentialism seems to have been incorporated into English, dingenhass seems to have been ignored by German. So, I can't help you with an actual German word but if you you give up and decide you want to campaign for a new one then at least you've got a starting point.
posted by stuart_s at 12:48 PM on March 2, 2006

widerspenstigkeit
tücke des objekts
posted by suni at 8:41 AM on March 3, 2006