German connection to TT football unearthed

I am delighted to welcome back Dr Braveword, our lexicological wunderkind, who is prepared to tackle more of your questions on the state of the language today. Take it away, doc!


Dear Dr Braveword: It was interesting to see you introduced as a “wunderkind” (though I suppose that, as it is a German word, it should have a capital and be spelt “Wunderkind”). I am constantly fascinated by the way we have imported and go on importing lots of French words but yet still we cannot get our footballers up to their standard. But even worse, very few good footballers from Trinidad and Tobago learn in Germany. Why is this? 
 
Dr Braveword writes: Because it is so easy for a British driver to hop on a ferry, go across to France and stock up on delicious French vocabulary at one of the many word warehouses springing up round the main French Channel ports. Then it is but the affair of a moment to skip back to England and let loose the newly acquired French nouns and verbs into the British economy. German vocabulary is much harder to import.
 
Dear Dr Braveword: Are you being serious? I want to know, is there any similarity between the words — sucker, suck up, brown nose and those who run football in FIFA?
 
Dr Braveword writes: No, of course I’m not, dummkopf. Ah — there’s another German word! You see, we have used two German words already and not a single French one.
That casts a little doubt on your theory, does it not? Incidentally, you are quite wrong about giving German nouns a capital letter. In English, German imported nouns must behave like English ones and renounce their capital letter. We do not write “kindergarten” with a big K
, do we? And as for Germans or the French in football, quite clearly the French are more naturally talented than the miserable Germans.
Dear Dr Braveword: No, but...
 
Dr Braveword writes: Well, then. People tend to think, by the way, that German words started coming into the language only when they dreamt up that slogan “Vorsprung durch Technik”, but we have actually been using German imports for years. Lots came in during the war — “blitzkrieg” and “Luftwaffe” and so on — and we are also very fond of certain German substances of a rather abstract nature.
 
Dear Dr Braveword: Certain German substances of a rather abstract nature?
 
Dr Braveword writes: Yes. Such as “kitschyourtailinfootball” and “zeitgeistisonlyoutforhimself” and “gestaltneedsalife” and “schadenfreude” and the most popular German substance of all, which is, of course...
 
Dear Dr Braveword:
“Schmalztheultimateleaderoradivsor”?
 
Dr Braveword writes: No. “Angst”. Could we get back to the English language now, please? Does anyone have any non-cross-Channel questions on sports other than football, like boxing for example?
 
Dear Dr Braveword: Yes. I notice that  the Boxing Board of Trinidad and Tobago that is so tragically powerless to rescue the sport at the bottom of the barrel and is always referred to on news bulletins as “stricken”. What is “stricken”, and how do you get to that state?
 
Dr Braveword writes: “Stricken” is one of those archaic words that news people keep in the bottom drawer to get out when something tragic is happening. In cricket, they refer to it by the name of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board of Control. “Stricken” is merely the old and discarded past participle of “strike”. “Grief-stricken” sounds a bit more noble than “grief-struck”.
Dear Dr Braveword: Any other usefully outmoded past participles you can pass on?
 
Dr Braveword writes: Sure. How about “fraught”? That actually comes from a verb that has now vanished, very much like our standard of jockeys in this country. It is the only bit left. “Bereft” is another good one. It is in fact the old past participle of “bereave”. “Pent” is quite good, too. It is the old past participle of “pen”, when you mean that something is penned in or emotions are penned up. “Hove” is my favourite, though.
 
Dear Dr Braveword: The town near Brighton in England, not the one in France, you mean?
 
Dr Braveword writes: Keep up, boy, try to keep up! No, I mean “hove”, the past tense of “heave”, as in: “The ship hove in sight round the headland.” The odd thing is that people now think there is a verb “to hove”, and say things like, “I see a car hoving in sight...” But “heave” is a perfectly good word meaning “to move” of a ship, as in “heave to”, so the misuse of “hove” is a new development in English right before our eyes! Remember, by the way, that we use archaic terms for two quite opposite purposes.
One is to make things seem falsely serious, which is why lawyers and clergymen use words no longer used by anyone else. “Grievous”, as in “grievous bodily harm” (which is what the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation does, for instance, not to mention “bodily” as well.)
The other is to make things seem falsely humorous. The British think it is mildly funny to call a pub landlord “mine host”, or to refer to a drink as a “potation” or “tincture”, or to talk about “wassailing” or “carousing”... Another thing...


Dr Braveword will be back again soon. Keep those queries rolling in!
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"German connection to TT football unearthed"

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