Jugendwörter

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In the online newspaper, Politico, Jules Johnston has an article about new German words coined by youth:

"In the words of young Germans, just ‘merkeln’ " (8/3/15)

The German dictionary manufacturer Langenscheidt came up with the idea seven years ago to create a list of new words and expressions invented by teens by selecting the “Jugendwort” (Youth Word of the Year). And since then, young Germans have been invited to submit terms to an online board.

The top vote getter for 2015 is merkeln, which means " to be unable to take decisions or give your own opinions and can be used to describe someone who just stays there without doing anything."  I don't know if that's a fair characterization of Angela Merkel, but enough young people must think it has sufficient validity to give it nearly three times as many votes as its closest competitor, Earthporn ("beautiful landscape"), and one third of the total.

The next closest contender is rumoxidieren, which apparently means "chill" (as in German chillen), I know not why.

My favorite by far is Smombie ("People who go spellbound by mobile phone on the road and do not look where they're going, composition of smartphone and zombie") because it reminds me of the Cant. dai1tau4 zuk6 / MSM dītóu zú 低頭族 ("head-down tribe") that I wrote about here:

"Tribes " (3/10/15)

No matter what you call them, and although they're innately comical, people who have their heads glued to those little glowing screens have increasingly become a menace on streets, sidewalks, and wherever else they're likely to collide with innocent vehicles and bodies.

[hat tip Jan Söhlke]



26 Comments

  1. Mara K said,

    August 10, 2015 @ 7:55 pm

    So German does have Word Induction Ceremonies?

    I'm amused that "Earthporn" was on the list. Do German youth really enjoy Reddit? (Or does the term predate Reddit?)

  2. Rene said,

    August 10, 2015 @ 8:10 pm

    >rumoxidieren, which apparently means "chill" (as in German chillen), I know not why.

    Rumoxidieren means "oxidating around". For something to oxidate it needs to react with Oxygen or simpler: Air. The most common oxidating stuff is rusty Iron, which basically just hangs around at fresh air for a long time and, well… it chills, so to say. Rumoxidieren –> Oxidate –> Hang around –> Chill. ;)

  3. Vance Maverick said,

    August 10, 2015 @ 8:40 pm

    Without knowing its usage, "rumoxidieren" breaks down as "to rust about/around", so it's a plausible idiom for chilling.

  4. Jonathan said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 12:24 am

    I would love it if someone could give some insight on "rumoxidieren". When I start to type it in to Google (which certainly knows that English is my native language), it points strongly to an anti-arthritis pain medicine named "Rumoxil". It would make a lot of sense if the drug had a sedative effective and rumoxidieren referred to using/abusing the drug for that effect (cf. Robotussin/robotripping), but I can't find any references to that possibility.

  5. Stefan said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 1:18 am

    By the way, Langenscheidt is often critizised by linguists in the German blogshpere for their "youth words of the year" that never seems to be in widespread use amongst the youth. Basically it is just a means of generating publicity for Langenscheidt without spending much effort or money. Cheap newspapers pick up their press releases and then these words are never heard of again.

  6. mel said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 2:10 am

    I thought Rene did a pretty good job of explaining it, actually. Certainly sounds legit to me. Reckon Rumoxil's a red herring.

  7. Bob Edgar said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 2:50 am

    Seems to be line from a 1990 Werner film "Werner-Beinhart":
    "Tut das Not, dass das hier so rumoxidiert?" and here (another film "Eiskalt!") "Werner, mussu hier so rumoxidieren?"

    Rumoxidieren seems like a good description of hanging around not doing anything — rusting. I wish it was a bit like listening to the grass grow for those of us with a thicker layer but it's more negative I think, at least in the original sense.

    Here's a reference in another synthesis (Arbeiterdenkmal — worker's monument):
    Arbeiterdenkmal

    jemand, der sich auf Arbeit nur "eingeschränkt bewegt" – also rumsteht.

    Neulich auf'n 'Bau: Horst: "Wo is'n Walter? Hier muß mal langsam wat passier'n" Dieter: "Der oxidiert da hinten rum und macht einen auf Arbeiterdenkmal!"

  8. Aristotle Pagaltzis said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 4:45 am

    Jonathan: no, no chance that Rumoxil has anything to do with it. The others here are right about the etymology.

    Bob: yes, it is indeed inherently negative, in that it refers to just sitting there and rusting, and that connotation is indeed used pejoratively. However it has significant non-pejorative use – originally in a kind of self-conscious/self-deprecating sense, like you might say “hey, let’s get together this weekend and laze about” to a friend, which then rose to prominence as slang for all sorts of R&R. So it is negative, but in a either a cool/ironic or pejorative way.

  9. Victor Mair said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 6:58 am

    @Stefan

    "Cheap newspapers pick up their press releases and then these words are never heard of again."

    From the helpful discussion above, it seems as though at least one of the words mentioned in the o.p. (rumoxidieren) is used fairly widely and has staying power. And I certainly hope that the same is true of my favorite: Smombie.

  10. David Marjanović said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 7:30 am

    By the way, Langenscheidt is often critizised by linguists in the German blogshpere for their "youth words of the year" that never seems to be in widespread use amongst the youth. Basically it is just a means of generating publicity for Langenscheidt without spending much effort or money.

    Most likely, most of the submissions every year are invented by young trolls, and the adults at Langenscheidt just lap them up…

  11. Thomas said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 7:38 am

    Impressive figures for „er merkelt“ ~ ”he merkels“: https://www.google.de/search?q=%22er%20merkelt%22&gws_rd=ssl
    “About 126” – including some centuries old texts.
    Langenscheidt has learned from the best: Back then, Duden tried to get „sitt“ for “not thirsty“ into the vocabulary, sponsored by Schweppes…

  12. Thomas said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 7:41 am

    “From the helpful discussion above, it seems as though at least one of the words mentioned in the o.p. (rumoxidieren) is used fairly widely and has staying power.”
    Ehm, not really: Google has ca. 6950 hits for the infinitive. Subtract the recent news and the 20 year old movie, and you end up with pretty much zero.

  13. Thomas said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 7:43 am

    Impressive figures for „er merkelt“ ~ ”he merkels“: https://www.google.de/search?q=%22er%20merkelt%22&gws_rd=ssl
    “About 126” – including some centuries old texts.

    Langenscheidt has learned from the best: Back then, Duden tried to get „sitt“ for “not thirsty“ into the collective vocabulary.
    Could have been a nice analogy to „satt“ ~ ”full/sated“. Longl-lasting effect close to zero.
    Oh, and that was sponsored by Schweppes…

  14. Victor Mair said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 7:54 am

    General observation: a Google search tells us little about the oral currency of an expression.

  15. Thomas said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 9:27 am

    Victor: yes, I know, but looking at the first hits, I mostly see metatext speaking about (alleged) language use and that old movie. And there’s a lot of German text online without a lot of barriers. In that respect, Google hits are more accurate than mere anecdotes ;)
    I don’t want to restrict actual language change, those two examples are just pretty old.
    Back then „Werner, the Russians are coming“ was a running gag based on Cold War reality. I’m 37 and Werner was old school in my youth…

    What David said has verifiably happened time and again:
    ”Most likely, most of the submissions every year are invented by young trolls, and the adults at Langenscheidt just lap them up…”
    Cf. e.g. this pretty old article on the first event: http://www.iaas.uni-bremen.de/sprachblog/2008/09/15/jugendwort/
    Sorry, I can’t hint to a detailed English article on that issue.

  16. Rob Hale said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 10:06 am

    The 'rum' in rumoxidieren is short for herum, with much the same meaning as 'around'/'about' in a phrasal verb in English. The abbreviation from herum to rum is very common colloquially, above all in speech.

    A search on 'herumoxidieren' brought up this from 2006 :
    "Will meinen das ich jetzt ca. 1400 doppelte Emails in Outlook herumoxidieren habe!"
    meaning roughly 'Reckon I've got about 1400 duplicate emails sitting around in Outlook'.
    The translation of 'herumoxidieren' as 'sitting around' is my best guess, but seems to fit the context.

  17. Victor Mair said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 11:03 am

    @David Marjanović, Thomas

    Trolls certainly are a menace on the internet, but I don't think that's the word you're looking for in this case.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

  18. Milan said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 12:47 pm

    One detail missing here is that the word originally leading the polls has been removed from the competition by Langenscheidt. "Alpha-Kevin", glossed as "der Dümmste von allen" (the stupidest them all) was deemed to discriminatory. Despite being reasonably young and German, I never heard the word before, but it is obviously based on the stereotypical association of the name "Kevin" with white working class youth and poor academical performance. (One teacher famously remarked: "Kevin is not a name, it's a diagnosis") A close (British) English calque would something be like "uber-Dwayne"

  19. Oliver Neukum said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 3:45 pm

    The name choices of the German underclass have led to slang themselves. "Kevinismus" is a common expression. As in : ein schlimmer Fall von Kevinismus (a bad case of Kevinism)

  20. raempftl said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 4:26 pm

    I have never heard "rumoxidieren" either but would have understood its meaning immediately within a given context. Which is actually where my problem is when it is descibed as a new word.

    rum- can be attached to (almost?*) any verb to mean that something is done aimlessly/haphazardly/without a particular purpose. Thus rumoxidieren does not feel new just clever or unexpected. I am not sure whether it can be classified as a new word just because a non-literal meaning was attached to it.

    *Since rum-attached verbs are somewhat colloquial, it is probably less common for latin language derived verbs which tend to be more technical. This is actually what makes rumoxidieren sound somewhat incongruous and thus clever and thus funny. However, I found Google-Hits for rumintegrieren and rumvalidieren (misspelt as rum validieren). I haven't found any instances of ruminteressieren. Though it would not be difficult to think of a context were somebody could construct this "new" word spontaneously.

  21. julie lee said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 6:20 pm

    Isn't there an English expression "Just vegetating" (doing nothing)? "Rumoxidieren" (just oxidating, rusting, sitting around doing nothing) reminds me of it. "Just oxidating" reminds me of "just vegetating".

  22. Jonathan said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 7:42 pm

    Weird, I could swear Rene's excellent explanation wasn't there when I posted, although it says it was posted 16 hours before mine. Sorry 'bout that.

  23. Brett said,

    August 11, 2015 @ 9:08 pm

    @Victor Mair: Making up fake youth lingo to confuse older "squares" seems like classic troll behavior. It doesn't require the Internet, necessary, but it certainly sounds like trolling nonetheless.

  24. Zeppelin said,

    August 12, 2015 @ 6:43 am

    On "merkeln": Angela Merkel is famous for her approach to criticism and scandal, often called "aussitzen" (to sit out). Basically, she doesn't respond to or acknowledge it until it goes away or someone else takes the fall.
    It's served her very well so far — famously, a poll showed that many Germans were unsatisfied with the government, but very satisfied with Angela Merkel. She's been nicknamed "Teflon" – nothing sticks to her.

    She's also known for speaking in vaguely positive-sounding platitudes, using simple, reassuring words without much specific content. (the CDU's slogan in the last election, at least where I live, was "Together – for Germany", presumably in opposition to the SPD's slogan "We all die alone – let's watch Germany burn", which in retrospect may have been ill-considered).

  25. Thomas said,

    August 13, 2015 @ 1:54 am

    @Victor: I was thinking of “attention trolling” – it’s a super popular term just outside of the English corpus visible from here ;)

    The general issue is that by now Langenscheidt shouldn’t expect a lot of goodwill, which is a shame.
    Of course it’s okay to let people vote on the best of a list 20 words. It’s just an appropriate default reaction that most of the list will be anything but popular or youth language.

  26. mira said,

    August 15, 2015 @ 1:43 pm

    "Oxidizing" is also Czech slang for hanging around aimlessly or vegetating, wasting time, whatever. The first example I found on google: "Praha… nemám ji ráda a stejně tady zase oxiduju" — "Prague… I don't like it very much, but I'm oxidizing here again anyway".

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