Long German Words for the Apocalypse

Pesach sameach everyone!

In my extremely obscure writing timetable that I’m never going to share with anyone, ever, for no real reason, it was time for another Weirdgerman, and it also happens to be Passover. So, I spent some time wondering if I could make this one thematic somehow. And I could, certainly. I came up with a few ideas. German words that are nearly but not quite the same in Yiddish, for example. That’s almost every Yiddish word, though. I’ve also thought about introducing you to the many German ways to say goodbye, because, you know. Passover’s a festival about getting the fuck out. And that did sound funny. But I actually have so much to say about German ways to say bye that I’ve been saving them up for their own post. Then, I could’ve gone Classic Weirdgerman and write about food again. But that would just make me miss bread. Oh my god I miss bread so much. Holy shit. Oh my fucking god. Just a few more days. Shit. Fuck.

I’m fine. It’s fine.

Anyway, this post is... sort of themed? Maybe? If you squint. You’ll see what I mean.

Squint at these:

• A cute little (long) word for people who just will not stay down no matter how much you kick them ;),
• two even longer words to put some good German drama in your vocabulary,
• and some advice on dealing with the Devil from someone who doesn’t believe in the Devil.

A Little Man Pissing the Night Away

Now here’s a good German word. It’s got everything—it’s a long compound word, there’s an umlaut, there’s our diminutive. What more could you ask for. Here, I’ll start by breaking down the compound for you:

The Stehauf part comes from the verb aufstehen, which means to get up. Stehen means to stand, and auf means up or on.

Mann means man, and -chen is our diminutive. Frequently, when words originally contain a vowel in their last syllable, that vowel will be turned into an umlaut for the diminutive. Hence, Männchen.

So, what could a Stehaufmännchen be? What do you think? There’s a similar word in English, right? Maybe a Stehaufmännchen is just a stand-up guy.

Wrong.

Do you know what a roly-poly toy is? I never had one myself, and kind of stumbled upon the English name for them, but you can look them up. They’re toys with a round base, so they kind of wobble about, but their weight is distributed in such a way that you can’t push them over. No matter how far you tilt them, they always shoot back up. I’d have to start a science blog to get into how that works (don’t tempt me don’t tempt me don’t tempt me I’ll scream), but I have seen them in other households despite not having one. So it works! They always get back up.

That’s what a Stehaufmännchen is. So that makes sense, right? They always get back up, so the German term for that toy is a little guy who gets up.

And now you see how that can also be applied to people.

That’s how I kept hearing the word, at first. Again, I didn’t have that toy, and for a while, I only heard the word referring to people. Frequently, actually, referring to myself. It is just like classic poetry teaches us: I get knocked down / but I get up again / you’re never gonna keep me down.

As for connotation, I suppose it is actually mostly neutral. Really depends on the situation. It’s not inherently a compliment or an insult, but you know, sometimes I think all of us would really prefer if we didn’t have to be a Stehaufmännchen. It’s nice if we can be one. But even if we stand on a round base and have our weight distributed in a peculiar way, maybe people could just stop trying to knock us over.

It’s Probably Not That Bad

Having been a Stehaufmännchen myself, I have gone through many periods in my life that were defined by a certain... Hmm, how to say this... (I produce my beautiful notebook full of printed-out Tumblr posts with aesthetic graphics about long German words with obscure meanings.) Yes, a certain Endzeitstimmung.

Alright, alright. I’ll admit it. Endzeitstimmung is a good one, and Endzeitstimmung is one of those German words. Most of the time, I do my best to be silly here, because we have much more silly words than we have brooding, beautiful words. But Endzeitstimmung belongs to the latter camp. But I like this one, and it’s another perverse compound, so I’ll break it down for you too:

Endzeit is itself a compound from Ende (end) and Zeit (time). So, the end times. Yeah.

Stimmung means mood.

That’s it already! Endzeitstimmung is a doomsday mood, if you will. It can be an actual mindset, for when everything is very, very bad, but I, in my unending aggressive optimism, prefer to just use it for the weather. Whenever dark clouds block out the sun in the middle of the day and you can’t see three feet in front of you because of the rain, that’s less depressing Endzeitstimmung. That’s like, a fun Endzeitstimmung. Like the last waterpark at the end of the world.

A synonym for this, because yeah, we have two of these words, is Weltuntergangsstimmung. Look, it’s even longer!

Welt means world. Untergang comes from untergehen, which comes from unter (under) and gehen (to go). Weltuntergang is the German term for the end of the world, so in our language, the world literally ends by going under. Under what? I dunno. My instinctive association was always water, as if the people who first came up with this word however long ago knew about the climate crisis, but I guess it could be anything. Maybe it’s just an ancient German prophecy for the next (and last :) molasses disaster.

You Can Draw the Devil on Most Surfaces

Yes, we’re staying on topic: Let’s talk about the Devil!

Anyone who reads my other stuff knows how much I love this guy. My good pal who doesn’t exist. I don’t buy into the Christian narrative around Devil stuff, but I do enjoy it as that, a narrative. There is so much theory and mythology around the Devil, language is full of references to him. A lot of Dos and Don’ts.

“Den Teufel an die Wand malen” is usually used with a Don’t, as in “Lass uns mal nicht den Teufel an die Wand malen,” meaning, “now let’s not paint the Devil on the wall.”

Soo... Why not? What’s he going to do about it?

It’s not a real mystery, of course. English has plenty of Devil facts (TM) itself. You know how he appears if you speak of him, and how he will open a door if you knock on enough of them. Generally, there seems to be a belief that if you keep referencing the Devil, you’re going to invoke him.

Great news for this OpenOffice document!

I actually couldn’t find out where the “wall” part of this comes from. It does seem to imply that you’re fine if you draw him elsewhere? And he sure has been drawn elsewhere a lot. If I paint the Devil on a canvas, will he just ghost me? That’s rude. I suppose the wall here comes from the fact that it’s a regular saying used by regular people, so the assumption is that nobody involved in this conversation is a painter with a canvas at the ready. There’s probably a wall somewhere close-by, and someone almost definitely has a pen in their bag. So, be advised not to use those for Devil drawing. Jury’s out on drawing him with a sharpie on a door.

Anyway, again, I don’t believe in the Devil, and I don’t believe in the world ending by going under in flames either (climate change is real, though. Don’t get me wrong. The world’s just not ending), what I do believe is that these beliefs all come from somewhere in real life. A simple English translation of the idea of painting the Devil on the wall would just be, “jinxing it.” It’s the idea that if you talk about something a lot, no matter if you believe it or not, you’re going to provoke it into existence.

I don’t believe that either. I just think it’s fun that it’s so deeply ingrained in so many of our cultures.

So someone who paints the Devil on the wall, in German, is usually making some sort of pessimistic prophecy. It’s used when things aren’t necessarily that bad yet, but someone immediately imagines them to get much worse. Then you can tell that person not to paint the Devil on the wall, because if they do that, he’ll show up. And then he’ll... Yeah, he’ll do something for sure. Probably something to do with molasses, right?