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.”
