Author Archives: Kate Oden

Das Verhängnis (“destiny, doom, downfall” or—my favorite—”undoing”) carves a mysterious path through German. I’d like it to bend in on itself, like an old river, and create a pool of sense, but it doesn’t. According to hoary sources, the progression is from hängen—verhängen—Verhängnis (from “to hang” to “impose a punishment/a curfew, etc.” to “downfall”).¹ See what I mean? How do you get from “hanging” to “imposing”?

I’d like there to be some written report from the Medieval justice system explaining that sentences for a crime were hung on the castle gate. Then I could understand how rulings were verhängt. Or, what might be even more likely, that hangings were such a common mortal sanction that a new verb was coined because of them.

I got nowhere, however, in searching for either derivation. For now I’m satisfied with the translation of “undoing” because it is formed from the root verb and a privative: a prefix that negates. I was just flirting with privatives when I wrote, a couple days ago, that verschwommen seems to be the poetic decay of schwimmen (calling it the reverse Midas touch-effect). Evidently, there’s a term for that, and it’s “privative.”

Whether ver- is actually considered a privative, I don’t know; I don’t think so. It’s not mean enough. But at least Verhängnis and “undoing” have a similar root-prefix structure.

Meanwhile, it’s time to get back to paid work, before this blog mir zum Verhängnis wird/”is my undoing.”

Generally, the German prefix ver- is the linguistic equivalent of the reverse Midas touch (or, as I like to call it, the Minimas touch). This is not a perfect logic, but there are examples of word pairs such as schlafen, “to sleep”—which is how productive society members bridge the gap between bedtime social media and morning yoga—and verschlafen, or “to oversleep,” which means the dentist is charging you for that early-AM appointment you’re missing.

Verschwommen doesn’t work this way, exactly, but it’s got a tinge of that action. Schwimmen is the verb “to swim” or “to float,” while verschwimmen is “to blur,” “to become indistinct.” Or—my favorite, here—”to swim” as in “to swim before someone’s eyes.” Man, I get such a kick out of translation that works out like that. It’s as though my brain were wired to operate not just on dopamine but on dopameaning.

Of course, that’s just my (professional but not PhD’d) interpretation of the poetic connections at play here. The Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache makes note of a connection between the root of schwimmen and schwemmen, “to wash (away)” or “to water.” It also notes that verschwommen has been used in relation to vision and being “indistinct,” “dissolv[ing] in the distance, as an image” since the 1700’s. Again, I like the image of people with verschwommenes Sehen (“blurred vision”) treading slowly as though underwater.

No surprise, really, that the English “blur” is suspected of arising from “blear” (as in today’s “bleary eyes,” don’t you think?) and running parallel to the Middle High German blerre. ² Why and at what point Germans dropped the blear, I wonder? Maybe they were just as punch-drunk over giving schwimmen its reverse Midas touch as I am.

Who wants their neck abraded by some stinky wolfskin hat? And who wants to be the butt of a joke? Schabernack, literally “scrap(er)neck,” means “prank,” or maybe better “humbug” in its obsolete meaning of “hoax” that’s maybe as old as Schabernack. ¹

The obsolete masculine noun is used with or without an article: “Ihr treibt doch fiesen Schabernack mit mir.” It traces back to the Middle Ages in Germany, when a “schabernac” was a “coarse, neck-chafing winter hat.” I picture a raw-edged animal pelt worn by commoners—perhaps a wolf hide, since wolves were widely hunted (and, interestingly, smell odious, then and now)—although information is hard to come by here. The word also meant “mockery” at this early stage. ²

Another etymological source traces the word’s roots back to the Gothic skaban—or scheren, to shear—and the old punishment of shearing the hair off the back of the head (I assume so scofflaws could be recognized, but it’s also a haircut bad enough it takes on the humiliating flavor of a prank). ³

Since then, the meanings of “a warm but irritating hat,” a “criminal recognizable by his bad haircut,” and “mockery” underwent some linguistic alchemy to mean, roughly, a more-or-less warmly intended, irritating trick played on someone. And a new style of Covid-do, the short-long “humbuzz,” might just take off.

I’m reminded here of my northern-German ex-boyfriend, who used to harangue early flat-screen TV’s with quirky insults when Borussia Dortmund games got real (“Du alte Schlange!!!”). I can see him tossing Schabernack around.

There is at least one town called Schabernack, where the residents attribute the name to deforested hillsides in previous centuries, which looked for all the world like a neck with a 5 o’clock shadow. ⁴

Schabernack might be yanked from the dictionary dust: I’ve seen it used in literature of the past 20 years ⁵ and even on merchandise: I am absolutely ordering a Schabernack beanie in wolfhide gray from spreadshirt.de to celebrate my first post.