Word What?

Schadenfreude

Discovery: I’m sure we’ve all gone through this. While reading a long article or a boring book, your mind begins to wander.  Your eyes just keep scanning the pages, but your brain is absorbing nothing.  That is until some titillating text like “sex” or “die”, screams off the page when your eyes cross them. This leads you to wake up from your day dream. All of a sudden, all the text you missed became a shit ton more interesting. You rescan the pages to get context.  Its as if you were at a lame party, that turned real interesting, real quick when that drunk-dude-that-always-takes-his-shirt-off, takes off his pants.  Well this same scenario came up with when reading this Newsweek blog.  I wasn’t really absorbing any information until the freakishly spelled “Schadenfreude” showed up on the scene to wreck havoc on my enunciation. WHO ARE YOU?

Definition: (n.) a  Pleasure derived from the misfortunate of others. A German word used as a loanword in English.

A Wiki aside: “A 2006 experiment suggests that men, but not women enjoy seeing bad people suffer.”

Real world use:

Use it to name your evil German doctor character in that screenplay about evil German doctors that you’ve been meaning to write foreverrrrrrrr….seriously dude what’s the hold up?

Minaret

Discovery: If there is one thing I know about myself, it’s that I suck at Scrabble.  I’ve been playing the Words with Friends app and have been pummeled by my more well versed friends.  My strategy is to create words, press submit, and hope that it’s a real word. It works 10% of the time, causing me to resort to such colorful words as “and” and “cat”.  But in this 10%, word discoveries are made and it is here we get the word Minaret.

Definition: (n.) a distinctive architectural feature of Islamic mosques.

A Wiki aside on the minaret ban in Switzerland: “In November 2009 referendum, a constitutional amendment banning the construction of new minarets was approved.”  There are only 4 minarets in all of Switzerland.

 Real world use:

“Minaret” is used once in the Clash song, “Rock the Cashbah”.  Now you know more than one word in that song, but will still continue to mumble things that sound like lyrics. Seriously, that song is incomprehensible.  It sounds like they’re singing one really long word with a million syllables.

Uh, that’s about it.

Perfidy

Discovery:  Archer is a brilliant show.  It’s probably the funniest thing to hit the airwaves since Arrested Development.  No joke.  But, not only is it funny, the writers have a knack for wordplay.  If you listen closely the show is a smorgasbord of words to be discovered.  So that bring us to the word perfidy. The word gets its due in the episode titled “Killing Utne”.  The character voiced by the venerable Jeffery Tambor yells the word after he finds that he had been decieved.

Definition: (n.) betrayl of trust

Cooler Wiki definition for Perfidious Albion: “a hostile epithet for Great Britain: perfidious signifies one who does not keep his faith or word, while Albion is the Ancient Greek name for Great Britain.”

• Use it if you are a pirate who has been deceived by his shipmates.
• Use it if you are a time traveler from the 13th century who has traveled to the present and still have disdain for Great Britain.
• Use it if you are a time traveler, who has traveled back in time to 13th century France looking to fit in.
• Use it if you are Scottish.
• Use it if you are Irish.
• Use it if you are quoting the line “Perfidy” from Archer.

Pourquoi

Discovery:  Watching an episode of Spongebob Squarepants entitled “Missing Identity”.  The episode puts a goofy edge on the film noir staple mark by having Spongebob narrate the mysterious story of how he had lost his name tag.  My discovery of the word came when in one scene he randomly yells “POURQUOI! Watch here at the 3:28 mark.

Definition:  French for “why”.

Better Wiki definition for Pourquoi Story:  a fictional narrative that explains why something is the way it is, for example why a snake has no legs, or why a tiger has stripes.

Real world use:

• Use it as an answer at least once if you find yourself being a contestant on Jeopardy.
• Use it if you are French.
• Use it to sound like a smart person
• Use it to trick friends into thinking you are smart.
• Use it to define the origin stories for ancient icons like Gilgamesh and Aquaman.