Okay, all you poseur literary types out there, writing hack articles on movies, politics, and meal planning, it's time to learn some editorial skills. Today's lesson: avoiding foreign words whose usage adds no content to a discussion and serves only to point to the apparent sophistication of the writer. Let's start with Schadenfreude. It's nearly impossible not to run across this German word in a magazine or newspaper opinion article every day. Used in English writing, it's a pretentious word. It's mere use conveys little content to the reader who is unfamiliar with pre-World War I Austria, its decaying culture, its psychological suppressions, it's reliance on nuance and the furtive, it's ambiguous pairing of hauteur of new wealth and the sidelong glance. Freud's cases chronicled it all. Wittgenstein's homosexual neuroses typified it. 'Schadenfreude' was operative in its collapsing world. But here in innocent America, the land of the wide vista, the improbable views, and the jostling juxtaposition that delights by its surprise, simply writing, 'I took guilty pleasure in their misfortune', will suffice.
Update. June 29, 2008. Come'on, guys. I was hoping someone would point out that I do in this article exactly what I scold writers who use the word, Schadenfreude, of doing. You did notice that, didn't you?
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