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"Entschuldigen" is a pretty fascinating verb, but not for the author's reasons. It literally means to remove guilt from someone (not specifically from oneself a
by habet 7y ago
"Entschuldigen" is a pretty fascinating verb, but not for the author's reasons.
It literally means to remove guilt from someone (not specifically from oneself as the author states) and is kind of equivalent to "forgive".
Commonly it is misused in German: people say "ich entschuldige mich", literally meaning they're removing their own guilt from theirselves and thus forgiving theirselves, which is kind of impossible and not what's actually meant.
The right phrase would be "um Entschuldigung bitten" (to ask to be excused) which actually is rarely used.
- tom_mellior 7y ago> The right phrase would be The right phrase, depending on your religion, is what people use in practice (descriptivism), or what's listed in dictionary (prescriptivism). In this case, the two happen to agree: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/entschuldigen https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/entschuldigen "jemanden wegen eines falschen Verhaltens o. Ä. um Verständnis, Nachsicht, Verzeihung bitten", example: "sich förmlich, in aller Form entschuldigen" I understand where you're coming from, but the ship has sailed. The word means what it means now, even if a literal historical reading indicates that it might have meant something else at some point.