In Notebook # 14, written from November 1877 – July 1878, Mark Twain recounts the trials and tribulations he endured while learning German. He claims the person who invented the language was “… some sufferer who had to sit up with a toothache.” Still, German offered Twain a revelantion: the purpose of eternity. “Eternity was made,” he wrote “to give some of us a chance to learn German.”
Though I haven’t been immune to similar bouts of exasperation with this famously difficult language, I’ve come to appreciates its uncanny ability to fuse words into terms that perfectly describe a range of ills and afflictions.
In German, Frühlingsmüdigkeit – spring tiredness – which might gnaw at your ribs – especially if you’ve been slaving away for a Hungerlohn (a “hunger wage” so low it leaves you in a permanent state of growling stomach). But things could be far more dire.
Young couples might be struck by Eifersucht – fanatic addiction, better known as jealousy, which only sounds half as extreme. Unmarried women in their late twenties may suffer from acute Torschlusspanik – the fear of the door closing, or being left on the shelf, a worry guys would never admit to but much to the Schadenfreude of all their smug, married cousins.
But guys have their own special set of ailments.
European students and artists who hang out in the cafes by day and pubs by night are particularly predisposed to bouts of Weltschmerz – world pain– a gloomy, romanticized state of suffering along with the pain of the world that calls to mind Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. And when the loss of Lebenslust (joy of life) sets in, even the lightest Katzenjammer – cat wail – (depressing state) can spiral. Those too Lebensmüde “life tired” may opt for a Freitod – free death – by plunging into the Danube. They would then join the hundreds of Viennese who are eternally resting in their Holzpyjama “wooden pjs” looking at the potatoes from underneath in the Friedhof der Namenlosen “The Peace Courtyard of the Nameless.” (Cemetery of the Nameless).
Personally, I seem to suffer from a chronic case of Fernweh – distance pain – the aching desire to travel somewhere far away.
What’s your ailment?
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Information on and Map to the Friedhof der Namenlosen in Vienna 
More Words of the Week
Geistesvernichtungsanstalt: Spirit Annihilation Asylum
