A good German site

Evilunderthesun is a German language blog that recently did two things: totally demolished the "Nazism was caused by Darwin" trope, with generous quoting of mich, and educated me that the word for April fool in German is Aprilschmerz, which I really like.

Tometheus (Prometheus' and Epimetheus' little brother, responsible for bringing egotism from the gods, I think) quotes my list as one of its favourite Aprilschmerzen.

It's good to be appreciated...

More like this

Worse than Babelfish. I can read for broad sense.

By John S. Wilkins (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

Aprilschmerz?! Now that's a good one! One of my best friends keeps making such puns all the time. We hate his guts, of course.

;-)
No, we don't. Nice link!

^_^J.

Oops. The hand is quicker than the eye. Aprilscherz, of course. Hey, I can pun badly in two languages!

By John S. Wilkins (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

Next time just pocket the praise. Schmerz (pain) instead of Scherz (joke) is actually a pretty good one, in this context! Care to express in an elegant, learned way that April Fool's Day is a pain in the ass? Well, there you go.

^_^J.

If that demolition of Darwin begat Hitler is really good, it would be very useful if we could find someone to translate it.

Uh, are you saying that Evilunderthesun is the blog of "a good German"?

By Pierce R. Butler (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

You may very well say that. I couldn't possibly comment.

By John S. Wilkins (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

John - a bit off-topic this, but the "Hand of Bush" effect might be seen in a large American healthcare database setting the search term "abortion" to a null-value (like "the" or "a") in any searches.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/us/05popline.html?hp

Just "in case" the wrong report turned up.

(signed) marc

By Marc Buhler (not verified) on 04 Apr 2008 #permalink

I'm the author of the linked German site.

First of all, I'm sorry if I qouted too much of your post. I was working on my refutation of Expelled's claim that Darwinism led to Nazism when I saw your April's fool post � and I thought it was just brilliant. In my post I tried to cover all arguments against this claim and one is, of course, that you have to ignore most of history to claim that there hadn't been antisemitism before Darwin wrote "The Origin". Whatever I could've written about this it wouldn't have been nearly as thorough and to the point as your treatment of that claim. Normally, I would've just linked to your site. But I know that some of my readers do not follow links to sites in English, so I took enough of your post to make the point. I apologize.

Re Aprilschmerz: If only I had come up with that � would have been a perfect pun to link to your post.

@chezjake: I just tried to collect all the arguments against such a claim. Most of it you'll already have heard elsewhere. I probably could translate the bone of it � but my ranting qualities are much better in German.

I learned a lot about the history and the background of Nazism in Germany, starting in school where this part of German history was treated in depth. Never did I hear the claim that Darwin(ism) was one of the factors that led to the Holocaust. I actually think it is a dangerous and false trivialization to state that "Darwinism" was a necessary prerequisite for Nazi Germany. In a way it says that if you didn't teach Evolution in schools anymore genocide could not possibly happen again. That's stupid and outrageous and a lot more that I can't express adequately in English.

JLT: You quoted a fine amount. I have a Creative Commons license for this blog and you met all the conditions just fine. I'm pleased to be corrupting the youth of another language community, that's all.

By John S. Wilkins (not verified) on 05 Apr 2008 #permalink

Aprilschmerzen.

Gesundheit!

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 05 Apr 2008 #permalink

JLT, those of us who struggle with our own language and are afraid to learn another, would still like to hear what you had to say.

If you have the time, and the energy, an English translation would be more than welcome.

By Gary Bohn (not verified) on 05 Apr 2008 #permalink

>>
If you have the time, and the energy, an English translation would be more than welcome.
>>

First, could someone please help us Germans out with a good word for quote mining? "Zitatabbau" does not have the right ring to it...

Aprilschmerz... now that fits, have you any idea what kind of wheather we have currently?

First, could someone please help us Germans out with a good word for quote mining? "Zitatabbau" does not have the right ring to it...

Frag mich was leichtes!

> First, could someone please help us Germans out with a
> good word for quote mining? "Zitatabbau" does not have
> the right ring to it...

Wie wärs mit "Zitatpanscherei" ?
For english speakers:
"panschen" means that you mix several ingredients (carelessly) together getting a...erm..."suboptimal" result.
It may mean intentional use (equivalent to "adulterate") or simply use with a careless attitude.

I like that. And I like even more the fact that the term is coined on my blog. It means that if it takes off I get €0.02 each time it's used...

By John S. Wilkins (not verified) on 06 Apr 2008 #permalink