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I only dropped the space so as to not count it. It's effectively the same as saying "improvement aggravation". Communication can be defined as information tha

I only dropped the space so as to not count it. It's effectively the same as saying "improvement aggravation". Communication can be defined as information that makes a difference, and the German verschlimmbesserung adds nothing. It literally transliterates to the exact same thing in English. I don't really agree much with your last point. Someome still has to come up with the word in German, and others have to use it. Edit: fixed a tapographical error <- see, it works in English too, as my sibling comment pointed out with updowngrade.

coldtea 5y ago
>It's effectively the same as saying "improvement aggregation" No, it's not (I also assume you meant "improvement aggravation"). First, pragmatically, as it is at the monent: (1) "verschlimmbesserung" IS a word in German, and is in use, people understand it, use it to express their update pain, etc. "improvement aggravation" on the other hand, is not a thing. It's just two words next to each other. People will scratch their heads as to what you mean, and you'll need to explain it with further terms in a circumlocutory way. And that's not by accident, it's because (2): (2) The second issue is that in german adding two words together (or more) "parses" in the language, and creates a valid new term (with either an obvious or a culturally transmitted meaning). In English that's not the case. You can't just say "This is an improvement aggravation" (I mean, it's a free country, so you can, but people would just think you've made a syntactic mistake). >I don't really agree much with your last point. Someome still has to come up with the word in German, and others have to use it. Yes, but like in Lisp with macros, in German the speaker (programmer) is allowed to come up with such words.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
  I still disagree. It's not really a new word, nothing new has been added. If we take the context away from the German as used here in this case, then it's just as meaningless as the English context-free utterance. The German term is just the two words smooshed together. Have you ever watched Lucy The Daughter Of The Devil? There's an episode where Jesus and Satan are doing smooshes. People think these German words and cool because they're novel and foreign, but English has plenty of very similar sorts of constructs, weirdness, and coolness too. Dang nab it! I'd argue English is just as expressive.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >The German term is just the two words smooshed together. Well, it's not. The devil is in the details, which includes the use of the language, not just how it appears to us.
epaga 5y ago
It doesn’t transliterate to the same. That would have been “verschlimmerungverbesserung” Instead, the “ver-“ prefix and the “-ung” suffix are factored out and basically, a new verb is invented and immediately can be understood by German speakers: “verschlimmbessern”

coldtea 5y ago

>It's effectively the same as saying "improvement aggregation" No, it's not (I also assume you meant "improvement aggravation"). First, pragmatically, as it is at the monent: (1) "verschlimmbesserung" IS a word in German, and is in use, people understand it, use it to express their update pain, etc. "improvement aggravation" on the other hand, is not a thing. It's just two words next to each other. People will scratch their heads as to what you mean, and you'll need to explain it with further terms in a circumlocutory way. And that's not by accident, it's because (2): (2) The second issue is that in german adding two words together (or more) "parses" in the language, and creates a valid new term (with either an obvious or a culturally transmitted meaning). In English that's not the case. You can't just say "This is an improvement aggravation" (I mean, it's a free country, so you can, but people would just think you've made a syntactic mistake). >I don't really agree much with your last point. Someome still has to come up with the word in German, and others have to use it. Yes, but like in Lisp with macros, in German the speaker (programmer) is allowed to come up with such words.

TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
I still disagree. It's not really a new word, nothing new has been added. If we take the context away from the German as used here in this case, then it's just as meaningless as the English context-free utterance. The German term is just the two words smooshed together. Have you ever watched Lucy The Daughter Of The Devil? There's an episode where Jesus and Satan are doing smooshes. People think these German words and cool because they're novel and foreign, but English has plenty of very similar sorts of constructs, weirdness, and coolness too. Dang nab it! I'd argue English is just as expressive.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >The German term is just the two words smooshed together. Well, it's not. The devil is in the details, which includes the use of the language, not just how it appears to us.

epaga 5y ago

It doesn’t transliterate to the same. That would have been “verschlimmerungverbesserung” Instead, the “ver-“ prefix and the “-ung” suffix are factored out and basically, a new verb is invented and immediately can be understood by German speakers: “verschlimmbessern”