Word of the Week
An introduction to the series
Bill Bryson is the reason I write English well. Not because he’s an exemplary stylist (he probably is, though I haven’t checked lately), but because I read two of his books—The Mother Tongue and Made in America—at the right moment in my childhood. These books, along with John Ciardi’s Browser’s Dictionary and certain articles in the original edition of Fowler’s Modern English Usage, introduced me to the pleasure of possessing a language by being familiar with its histories and hidden connections.
If you want to eat potato chips without getting your fingers greasy, you can take a fork and prop them between the tines. (This works best with widewale crinkle-cuts.)
Or again: There was or is a niche—a sort of architectural error—next to the Hot Topic in the Dayton Mall where you could pause, redistribute your bags, and count your money while remaining almost unseen.
These things are not obvious; they depend on having more-than-surface knowledge about forks, potato chips, and that particular mall. But now that I have told you about them, you have some of that knowledge even if you have never personally experienced any of those things.
When I set myself to learning German, I wanted something like that: a starter pack of trivia—some knowledge about the words I was memorizing, so that I would have a shot at appreciating them in all their palimpsestic, transfected, or differentially eroded wabi-sabiness. And, perhaps, so that I would someday be able to use them as skillfully as I use forks, niches, and English words.
Books like Bryson’s, Fowler’s, and Ciardi’s most likely exist for the German language, though I don’t know what they are. There is also a lesser sort of fun-facts-about-words book (I ate those up as a child, too), and those definitely exist for German.
Of course, most such books that are for German are in German, too. And the trouble with studying a language is that you don’t know it yet.
Books in English about German do not convey the sort of knowledge I want, because books in English about German assume that the main things you want to do with the language are tell people your name, order espresso drinks, muddle through job interviews, read Protestant theologians, or go on dates. I don’t often do any of these things in English; what do I want them in German for? Or, at least, why would I want to start with them?
Closest things I’ve found to what I’m looking for are a a blog called YourDailyGerman (recommended, though I haven’t been reading it for long) and a couple of books. I’m not naming the books because I haven’t read them yet; I will doubtless review them eventually.
In the mean time, since there’s not already a flowering abundance of exactly the thing I want, I am going to start manufacturing it. People who sell nootropics and vegan cheeses start out this way all the time (and don’t even get me started about pornographers). Pop etymology cannot be all that different, can it?
The short pieces in this series will come out on Wednesdays. They will be written in English and will presume no prior knowledge of German. (Why should I ask of my readers what I do not ask of myself?) Their focus will be on the word’s origins, connotations, shades of meaning, and any historical or cultural context that I happen to turn up. I won’t write about grammar because I can’t be bothered to learn it myself. I won’t provide mnemonic devices because they fill me with rage.
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