Here's another German oxymoron that English needs to steal: "Verschlimmbesserung," literally, "worse-bettering." This is when you try to improve something but just make it worse. So next time you come across this phenomenon, use this German word to refer to it: "That's typical verschlimmbesserung!" Or "he verschlimmbessered my article with his prescriptivist editing!"
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2 comments:
I wonder if to some extent this idea is covered by the American phrase "ass backward." "He tried to fix the motor but it got it ass backward."
There was a Language Log post recently about the use of "ass" in that way, and in other, related ways.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8542
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