bierkergaard

There is a word that I read on a semi-regular basis in articles. The only person I have ever heard use it in conversation is my dad who speaks German. It is the German word schadenfreude. The definition from dictionary.com is: Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.German : Schaden, damage and Freude: joy. Damaged joy...I am not sure what it is about some German words...they just seem to pack a lot of awful intensity. Verbal Blitzkrieg. Heck, when I hear German spoken, it sounds like language emanating from the gut and spoken through a blender. It doesn't do much for the elegance and beauty of a language to have its most well-known speaker in history be Hitler. Another German word, much less negative, is Zeitgeist which roughly means the "spirit of the age." Drop a "Zeitgeist" here and there in conversation and people will think you are an intellectual or a pompous blowhard...so do so cautiously. I have had schadenfreude associated in my head rece