The History of My Feelings Towards Genre Fiction in 1997 and 2007, Respectively, Presented as German Compound Nouns With Accompanying Translations

“[F]ragments of words flung into an octagonal cylinder—take a good look at them before you begin to turn the machine, for you will never see them in their simplicity again—never never any more.” —Mark Twain

 

1) Gutenachtgeschichte means a bedtime story and feinschmecker means gourmet and schwartzmarkt means black-market and spielplatz means playground (correspondingly, a schwartzmarktfeinschmeckergutenactgeschichtespeilplatz would be a black-market gourmet bedtime-story playground).

 

2) Liebeskubber means problems in love and minderwertigkeitskomplex means inferiority complex and a verbesserungsvorschlag is a suggestion for improvement and verschlimbesserung is an action that was intended as an improvement but that has, instead, made things worse, and an endzeitstimmung is an apocalyptic mood, and abfahrt means a departure. (A liebeskubberminderwertigkeitskomplexverbesser-ungsvorschlagverschlimbesserungendzeitstimmungabfahrt would be a departure precipitated by problems in love stemming from an inferiority complex, suggested means to improve it, the failure of said improvements, and an ensuing apocalyptic mood, I think.)