Nothing If Not Eclectic
Comments: 4
Every so often (OK, every day) I look down the page here and see a string of completely unrelated items masquerading as some sort of half-baked Weltanschauung and must force myself to imagine that one person’s complete and utter lack of focus is another’s vibrant eclecticism.
Just thought I’d share that. Hope you’re enjoying the vibrant eclecticism.
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Posted to MetaStuff • 2003.11.12 (Wed) • 22:29
Comments
Posted by stevenf 2003.11.13, 13:58
Mmmmm… Half-baked Weltanschauung.
(I’m really sorry. I couldn’t keep that bottled up.)
Posted by beaty 2003.11.13, 17:49
…Likewise - ‘Weltanschauung’, is that anything like Bocwurst or Sauerkraut?
And ‘half-baked’? ….Then it must be a sort of struddel or schnitzel then?
;o)
Posted by Sebastian 2003.11.21, 11:38
alright - weltanschauung. Great. I’m always surprised when I see german words appear in english. I am german. Very odd feeling for me, I have to say.
It’s a good word though. ‘Zeitgeist’ made it too, and I was just as suprised when I first saw it pop up in the middle of english text. Here I see ‘Weltanschauung’ for the first time. I recently read in a newspaper that there seem to be only a few dozen german words that went into other languages.
This vocabulary-expansion thing in english has always kept me wondering - new terms are just introduced, and everyone is expected to just ‘get it’, or ask, perhaps think the other person is smart, or think the other person is making things unnecessarily complex, or think ‘I’m just not getting it, nevermind.’
It seems to me that english is much more open to new words than german - in german conversations a new word is most of the time immediately prompted by a question for its meaning - that makes you think how to express it in a simpler way - and there seems to always be a simpler way - rather than branching off in discussions to settle terminology - if you want to get something across reliably.
The fact that this is the World Wide Web brings me to the conclusion of at least explaining ‘Weltanschauung’ a bit - generally I’d be to shy to throw a new term out like this, afraid to be considered arrogant when knowing most people never heard it, especially when you can say it with more words in english and people will understand it more easily.
Just in case anyone feels excluded by not understanding the term:
German: Weltanschauung Sound-wise in english: Walt un show (as in “shower”) oung Word-by-word pseudo-translation: World on see ing … View of the world.
It can have an intentional ironic, schizophrenic notion of both admitting that its only one of many views and that at the same time potentially one could fall into the trap of believing that its the only view (of the world).
The term standing alone by itself could be understood by certain groups as the well-known problem of everyone having their particular (dissenting) opinion. “Das ist Weltanschauung” … (das ist = this is) … a phrase that could mean that this is some other view not to be questioned or hard to change, and perhaps even hard to understand, depending on context. Weltanschauung is implied to always be very ‘fixed’, which is understood to be the flaw, where ‘Welt’ which means ‘World’ illustrates the exclusiveness of the approach. Lots of irony comes along with this word when used in german: Intentionally, no-one wants to be taken fully serious when he starts explaining his ‘Weltanschauung’ - given the shared understanding that of course there are always many views. “I’m making fun now and am seeing it all way too simple”. At the same time it is totally valid that there are many ‘Weltanschauungen’ (plural with ‘en’) and that each individual has one or more of them. Declaring something to be a ‘Weltanschauung’ can also imply that it is being forced onto others or taken too religious or serious, depending on the context. “Don’t make a Weltanschauung out of this…”
Now I got a chance to explain a term I’ve been using naturally for a long time when talking to one audience to another audience, which is exciting and very much valued from my side. I do wonder whether german words in english are well-percepted or not, and why those particular german words got introduced in the first place, others not, and how they got their meaning in english. Questions I had for a longer time, this ‘Weltanschauung’ triggered them again - thanks.
- Sebastian
Posted by fontgoddess 2006.06.21, 15:20
I’ve quoted you. I actually did it a while ago, but I thought I’d let you know since someone else has quoted me quoting you (although you still have the credit … if that statement made any sense at all …). Yay internets! And thank you for having your name at the bottom of your website so I could credit you properly.
“One person’s complete and utter lack of focus is another’s vibrant eclecticism.” ~ Jeremy Hedley
here: fontgoddess.wordpress.com
and here: whatacharacter.wordpress.com
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