There was a brief item in the Channel 4 News last night about the strikes which are causing chaos in France. It featured the remarks of a lively Frenchwoman who wasn’t pleased about the situation and said so with great vigour, adding that the IOC must be mad to consider holding the Olympic Games in a country where this sort of thing happened.
I wasn’t paying much attention to this until I heard the newsreader, the admirable Samira Ahmed, say that the promoters of London 2012 were reacting to these events with Schadenfreude.
This word is not particularly rare in English – it crops up less often than Zeitgeist, say, though perhaps more often than Weltschmertz – but hearing it used casually and unpretentiously in the news happily confirmed the impression I have had for some time that the evening Channel 4 bulletin stands out among others by assuming that its viewers have rather more than basic literacy.
5 comments:
Aah that's nothing. I heard someone say schadenfreude on Five Live the other day. AND they knew what it meant, which is more than I can claim...
Well, you know now, Mark, don't you? How about Weltschmerz and Zeitgeist? Honestly, now.
Can't imagine how you came across my comment, Samira, but I'm glad you did. I hope I don't miss the first time you slip in Fingerspitzengefühl or perhaps Gemutlichkeit.
Ahh.. "Gemutlichkeit" I've wanted to use that ever since I saw Cliff Richard or one of his chums say it in "Summer Holiday". I shall do my best to work it in. May take a while.
Cliff RICHARD? Doesn't sound like his sort of word at all. There's not much Gemutlichkeit about at the moment so you'll find it difficult, but trying to work it into a news bulletin will relieve the awful tedium of telling us all about the election campaigns. I don't always get to see Channel 4 News so with a few friends I have set up SamiraWatch to make sure we don't miss it when you succeed.
I try to work words I am fond of into my blogs: I've just done louche and now I'm thinking about virulent.
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