What are your favorite agglutinative nouns in German?
The uncanny way in which German agglutinative nouns are a poetry unto themselves is what I consider to be one of the greatest joys (and Mark Twain considered of the greatest horrors) of studying the German language. Near to my heart is "die Morgenheutegesternwelt" a word used in the novel "Illuminatus!' by Robert Anton Wilson to describe experiencing the flow of time in a nonlinear fashion. Which ones do you find most interesting? Unlike what seems to usually be the case, I'm not necessarily asking for unusually long words so much as words in which the elements combine in a fascinating way to express a unique concept.Mark Twain's famous satirical essay "The Awful German Language" to which I was refering can be read here:
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html

Question

What are your favorite agglutinative nouns in German?
The uncanny way in which German agglutinative nouns are a poetry unto themselves is what I consider to be one of the greatest joys (and Mark Twain considered of the greatest horrors) of studying the German language.  Near to my heart is "die Morgenheutegesternwelt" a word used in the novel "Illuminatus!' by Robert Anton Wilson to describe experiencing the flow of time in a nonlinear fashion.  Which ones do you find most interesting?  Unlike what seems to usually be the case, I'm not necessarily asking for unusually long words so much as words in which the elements combine in a fascinating way to express a unique concept.Mark Twain's famous satirical essay "The Awful German Language" to which I was refering can be read here:
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html

Answer

das Fingerspitzengefühl
der/die Sprachverliebte
die Inaugenscheinnahme
das Fernstraßenbauprivatfinanzierungskonzept, -gesetz
der Fahrtrichtungsanzeiger
die Abstandseinhaltungserfassungsvorrichtung (gibt es wirklich: sind auf der Autobahn Querstreifen, meist vor einer Brücke, die über die Autobahn geht, und mit deren Hilfe man den Abstand zwischen Autos messen, also "erfassen" kann)

Answer

I disagree to name it the horror of studying the German language, I think it rather facilitate the process and those agglutinative words many times could be directly understood from the combination of the words and in many cases like your example their meanings extend to concepts that could be derived from the unique combination of simple words or combining a historical event or name  with a concept. It enriches the language and makes it more interesting.

Some examples are 'Superaffengeil' und 'Granatenscharf' , but those are only slang ;) just kidding ,that is not really fascinating nor a unique concept !

"Nibelungstreue" maybe, it refers to an unshakable sort of loyalty derived from the 'Nibelungenlied".

Answer

Donaudampfschifffahrtgesellschaftskapitänsmütze

Answer

LOL,

Daniel, thank you for giving me a new feeling of this german concept.

I have never heard of "Morgenheutegesternwelt" but I really like the word.

As Ottos comment shows, a vast resource for those words might be the feared "Beamtendeutsch", but I believe that the work of poets and philosophers might be also valuable resources for such words (I suggest to try Martin Heidegger, though I never read a book of him).

Some more words come into my mind right now, not those monsters everybody thinks of in the first case:

Abendstunde
Dämmerlicht
Notenständer
Weltschmerz  (this is also a "germanism" in the English language
Vorfreude

Thank you also for posting a link to Mark Twains essay, I was searching for that since long (as I only knew the essay exists, not knowing its name)

Answers · 4

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