Tag Archives: Dictionary

An Aspie’s Social Dictionary via Germany

by Annie | Leave a comment

I rarely recommend The New York Times affirmatively; that is to say, to digest something I heartily approve of.  Typically it is to mock something therein.  Or test your capacity to read it’s pages without blood shooting from your eyes, head exploding, or small furry creatures in your vicinity surviving to its end.

However, this morning, it did something good.

It reviewed a forthcoming book on words like schadenfreude, German words that have made into our English lexicon (to some extent or another), and there were some gems in there that appealed to my Asperger’s riddled brain; that feature of my brain that finds clever word play wonderful, and the harder, more intractable part that simply finds human interaction genuinely painful – before, during, and after.

My faves, in no particular order:

  • PLAUSCHPLAGE

plowsh-plah-ghe

The pressure to make bantering small talk with people you interact with everyday.

  • TAGESLICHTSPIELSCHORK

tah-ghess-liccht-shpeel-shok

Being startled when exiting a movie theater into broad daylight.

  • LEERTRETUNG

lair-treh-toong

Stepping down heavily on a stair that isn’t there.

  • EISENBAHNSCHEINBEWEGUNG

eye-zen-bahn-shine-beh-veh-goong

That false sensation of movement when, looking out from a stationary train, you see another train depart.

  • FINGERNAGELTAFELQUIETSCHEN

fing-er-nah-ghel-tah-fel-kveetch-en

The visceral hatred of certain noises.

  • FETENLAUSCHANGRIFF

feh-ten-laowssh-ahn-griff

Tuning in and out of a number of conversations at a party.

::

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Rewriting the Dictionary

by Annie | Leave a comment

Just a couple of the words we thought we all understood until Progressive Social Justice started the rewrite:

GREED:  Greed used to be gluttonous covetousness – no matter who was doing it or why.

Now, if you are in OWS, and just feel wronged, deprived, or otherwise locked out of what you have not been able to earn on your own, it’s not greed they are expressing, it’s righteous indignation at income inequality.

I dunno… In my stupid, simple America, when you look at some guy who’s done well and rage “GIMME!!,” that’s GREED. Dangerous greed, based on an utterly unmerited, misplaced sense of self-entitled covetousness.

MARRIAGE:  Marriage used to be the union of one man and one woman.  It is the most basic building block of the community of man, made manifest by the most basic impulse of man, to survive, through the propagation of the species.  For 5,000 years we have understood this as fundamental to the organizational principles by which we self-regulate the sharing of space on planet earth, and long ago invented a word for it:  marriage.

It’s not political.

It just is.

Now, if we don’t confer the word, “marriage” on same-sex unions, we’re bad.

No.  No, we’re not.  We just think calling a puppy a kitten doesn’t make it feline.  It’s still canine, no matter how much you browbeat us.  A puppy is a puppy and a kitten is a kitten and those are the words that describe those organisms.

You want all the rights & privileges of a legal covenant binding two people together for life?  Fine! 

If you are lucky enough to find someone to make that precious covenant with you, to make that solemn promise to partner with you through the journey of life, you’re damned lucky and should be thankful.  We should all celebrate your good fortune.  God love ya!

JUST CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE BECAUSE IT’S NOT A “MARRIAGE.”

I could go on… There’s whole dictionary full of words these people have changed and it makes me cranky.

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