Some Things Cannot Be Bought and Sold

"We have appropriated the language of investment  and profit to describe endeavors that ought rightly to remain distinct and free from market considerations... To a certain extent, the predisposition in favor of acquisition is built into the discourse of capitalism, and that itself deserves vigilance as long as people of  faith live under the banner of enlightened self-interest.  But the marketing language that dominates descriptions of human interaction in a capitalist economy obscures a much deeper understanding of the gift character of all that is, and our familial relationship to all life and especially to each other. We lose at great cost common expressions that remind us that some things cannot be bought and sold. Some times, places, relationships, and words should not be subjected to the terms of economic transaction. At least the discourse of the church should reflect this."-Marilyn McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

Broke Brokers Nothing New

According to Sereno Pratt’s book The Work of Wall Street: “The word broker is old. The early English form was broceur. By some it is believed to be derived from the Saxon word broc, which meant, misfortune and the first brokers indeed appear to have been men who had failed in business as principals and been compelled to pick up a precarious living as agents.” Too much greed, too many gambles, bad luck and out and out stupidity have all been known to lead to financial ruin.

The Internet and the news media continue to buzz with people describing their sense of pleasure at seeing the rich fare poorly. The number of "schadenfreudes" in recent news stories are too numerous to recount. The Boston Phoenix added a little color today by coining "schadenfreude-riffic."

"Turns out, Wall Street’s just as fallible as me," wrote Kara Baskin. "I know it’s kind of unpatriotic and cruel, but there’s something schadenfreude-riffic about watching arrogant and formerly rich assholes scurry for help, tails between their legs. The New York Times said it best: 'Wall Street traders began to believe that the values they had assigned to all sorts of assets were rational because, well, they had assigned them.'”

Our Winning Word: SADENFREUDE

Sadenfreude n. An emotion that combines joy in another's misfortune tempered only by the overriding sense that the misfortune is going to have some serious and sad consequences.

Seeing fat cats laid low has always produced an emotion the Germans call Schadenfreude, defined in English as "joy in another's misfortune." I should know, I wrote a book on the subject, Schadenfreude, Baby! published by Lyons Press.

The past few weeks have been a good time for Schadenfreude watchers. If you have a Google alert set to "Schadenfreude" you have seen it go crazy recently with observers of all stripes expressing something other than empathy for failed investment bankers. But it's hard to feel too gleeful. The emotion we're experiencing is different than our old school Schadenfreude over Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton.

“There would be something comical, even pleasurable, in watching the frenetic agitation of the banking world”, wrote Laurent Joffrin, editor of Libération newspaper, “if millions of jobs were not at stake, not to mention the economic balance of the planet.”

We need a new word to describe the mix of emotions we're feeling which is why I called for submissions from the general public on my blog www.schadenfreude-baby.blogspot.com.

The winning word was submitted by Tom Lennon of England who coined "Sadenfreude: Taking pleasure from others misfortune while feeling rather sad about it."

Other entries included karmaglee; desletsenium, a mix of three different latin terms for a regretful feeling of Schadenfreude; Eupheria or Schadenfreude tinged with fear of impending financial doom; trickledownpathoshumorism, and Himmeldonnerwetter, "brought to you by the same folks that gave you schadenfreude!"

Related neologisms submitted included "neoconomitus -- the shared malaise that comes from failed neoconservative economic policies and practices;" "Har-de-harbinger, Something that foreshadows an ominous-yet-funny event;" and "Fucosthriveudie-meaning financial officers of a company will always thrive, even if those they have scammed or let down financially die."

Congratulations Tom on your winning submission. Although the contest is now closed, please feel free to keep posting your words and suggestions. I've enjoyed your creativity.

Picture of the Day

This image was originally posted on Wordsplosion, a site dedicated to images of grammatical errors. If you're annoyed by signs that say "Twelve items or less" you'll find it addictive browsing.

Blogenfreude

If you're just discovering the word "Schadenfreude" you're way behind, according to an article in BlackBook Magazine. Not only are more and more people using the word "Schadenfreude" itself, they are increasingly using "-(en)freude” as a suffix.

Examples? "Hillaryfreude may better name your sadistic joy at the death throes of the former First Lady’s campaign—unless your heart is filled with Obamafreude, over the Illinois Senator’s protracted preacher problems. Or maybe you’re bathing in Spitzenfreude, Shaqenfreude, or Spearsenfreude, as you luxuriate in the declining fortunes of Eliot Spitzer, Shaquille O’Neal, or Britney Spears," writes Mark Peters.

As the writer explains, "The success of -(en)freude is an example of what linguists call 'cranberry morphemes'—or cran-morphs for short. There was no cran before cranberry, but that little syllable grew up to become shorthand for cranberry in words like cran-apple and cran-grape."

The article gives many entertaining examples of -(en)freude words, my favorite being an example lifted from someone's personal blog: “Yesterday, it was ‘selfenfreude’ that got me through the day. If you can’t laugh at yourself...”

If "selfenfreude" catches on, I'll have to take joy in my own misery that a book on Schadenfreude is already behind the lexical curve.

Schadenfreude Watch: The Movies

The word "Schadenfreude" is gaining currency. A new CGI animated adventure made its debut yesterday at The New York Comic Con. Igor is about a mad scientist's assistant. In this film Igor is the main character.

But for our purposes much more interesting is the bad guy, the villainous Dr. Schadenfreude, played by British commedian Eddie Izzard. "Schadenfreude is described as being like a rock star in his world," according to the review at Ign.com.

Next time I'd like to see a movie with a corporate marketing exec named Mr. Schlimbesserung. (It translates as a so-called improvement that actually makes things worse.)