...One of these German words where the translators of the world simply give up and roll with it. Feeling joy at the misfortune of others. That ́s Schadenfreude.
Yesterday I heard in the news that an Italian national who had been been released for from clink for good behavior eighteen years ago with the stern warning never to return to Germany (I wonder what you have to do to get that) had been arrested after his flight to Croatia landed in Munich, he now has to spend the rest of his original sentence of three and a half years in the slammer.
In my minds eye I can see the poor guy in a cell thinking: "BUGGER!"
Or another good one, this is a while back.
Town center, a well dressed and elegant older blind guy was walking along the sidewalk. He did this with so much aplomb and confidence that I picked it up on my radar and watched a bit. His white stick sensing every crack and bump in the pavement. He came to the crossing feeling his surroundings with his stick and pushed the button on the traffic light.
The little buzzer went off and he stepped out into the street, totally in control, his stick bobbed up and down as a salute to any potential driver, he got to the other side, stepped up on the pavement. I am going to spend a little time in Hell for laughing. Turned to the left and with a resounding "CLANG" walked straight into a signpost.
So now then what was your best tale of Schadenfreude?
Long ago, back in the states, while driving down the highway, another guy and I where speeding somewhat. Then my radar detector started beeping so I took my foot off the gas and let him finally pass. Low and behold a state trooper was sitting in the median and I watched with a little smile as he pulled out, race after and pulled over the poor guy.
Idiots in traffic, allways a good source of Schadenfreude.
One of my Geraniumpolizei neighbors recently bought a holiday house in the US.
When I asked her how she was enjoying beachfront life, she started sputtering...
Apparently she was cited with a 'neighborhood nuisance notice'... for harassing the folks next door via post-it notes.
Am I guilty of Schadenfreude, or simply enjoying karma from the sidelines?
I was driving between Lausanne and Geneva early one Sunday morning and came across somebody, with foreign plates up dawdling along at 110 kmh on a very quiet motorway in the left side lane so i flashed my lights at him.
He speeded up a bit but didn't move over to let me pass, so i flashed him again and he speeded up but didn't move over, so we repeated the light flashing business by which time we were around 180kmh.
I then slowed up to a respectable 120kmh and let him blast pass a speed camera at around 180-190kmh, which obligingly flashed him
Funny or what !!!
Speaking Swiss for over 30 years now, I've always felt the Swiss use Schadenfreude more as "just deserts". Let's take the example of Slammer's blind man and say that the man had done something beforehand to annoy Slammer. Watching the blind man walk into the signpost afterwards would have been a perfect example of Schadenfreude.
And that's what Schadenfreude is! There needs to be some emotional attachment otherwise it's just being mean.
Actually it's also defined in the english dictionary and has nothing to do with being mean or not. Its simply taking pleasure in some other persons tragedy.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dic.../schadenfreude
Because that's not mean? (Unless it is somebody losing to us in hockey)
When I've regaled my German speaking colleagues with a story about how someone got their deserved comeuppance, I like to say that we've a word in English that describes my emotional response - but I don't know the German.
That's a very poor and utterly incomplete description for the meaning in German; so much so it's actually false even though it points in the right direction.
Schadenfreude is what you feel when you see instant karma play out. The second event (the one where instant karma hits) can't be significantly more severe than the first, and there needs to be either a causal relation between the two or the same/similar happening with reversed roles.
TO's case above is a beautiful example where Schadenfreude is well placed (though the consequences of 180km/h may be a bit too severe). OTOH there would have been zero cause for Schadenfreude if the car in front had hit a deer at any point.
And to extend a bit:
"Häme" is the open display of Schadenfreude (and, often, simultaneous shaming of the offender), usually in a manner the offender must notice. Take TO's final flashes for example.
"Max und Moritz" by Wilhelm Busch is recommended literature on the topic. Probably not PC though.
Karma does not have to be involved for something to be called schadenfreude.
A cyclist who falls can make me laugh even tho he did nothing to provoke the accident so karma is not involved.
Anyway, since Schadenfreude is in the Oxford English Dictionary, it belongs to us. We can make it mean anything we want it to mean.
As Humpty Dumpty said.
I like epicaricacy (meaning: Joy upon evil )
Schadenfreude may Not be translateable 1:1 because it‘s a German thing, Imagine sombody slipping on a banana peel, you as a angelonic would Rush to that Person and give aid and hold hands until the Krankenwagen comes. A German would cockle over laughing.
I'm Dutch and we have the word "leedvermaak" which is a perfect translation and has the same meaning.
So Banana peel you said...
That carries a notion of justice or god's mills, karma. Not sure if schadenfreude does.
People having fun while others suffer peeve me off. Stockholm syndrome carries a bit of that bloodthirstiness...or driving on A1 by an accident when everyone slooooowwwwsss the heck down to see what exactly happened to those unfortunate souls.