Happy Monday! 👋
I hope your week is off to a good start.
Before we get into this email, quick question: Have you ever tried to fix something and somehow made it worse? Be honest!
Tightened a screw until it stripped. Edited an email until it stopped making sense. "Improved" a recipe your family actually liked.
We've all done it. And this week, I found out there's a German word for exactly that feeling, and honestly, I'm a bit annoyed it took me this long to discover it.
Let's get into it!
Language: German - "Verschlimmbessern" (fair-SHLIM-bess-ern)
Meaning: Verschlimmbessern describes the act of making something worse while genuinely trying to make it better.
It's not carelessness. It's not laziness. The intention is good. The result, unfortunately, is not.
In English, we might say:
"I tried to fix it but made it worse." "My attempt at an improvement backfired."
German captures the whole experience in one word: Verschlimmbessern.
Why it's fascinating:
The word is a compound of two opposites fused:
verschlimmern: to make worse
verbessern: to make better
Slam them together, and you get an oxymoron in verb form. A word that only works because the two ideas conflict.
It first appeared in the Brothers Grimm dictionary in 1854, which tells you this wasn't invented on the internet. Germans have needed this word for a long time.
The noun form, die Verschlimmbesserung, can describe anything from a confusing app update to a government policy that missed the mark. It's endlessly useful.
Example:
Er hat die Küche verschlimmbessert.
"He made the kitchen worse by trying to renovate it."
Koryak: The Language Russia Is Accidentally Erasing
In the far northeast of Russia, the Koryak people built an entire language around reindeer herding, coastal hunting, and survival in some of the harshest conditions on Earth.
It worked for centuries.
Then came Russian-language schooling. It was well-intentioned, modernising, and devastating.
With every generation that grew up learning Russian instead of Koryak, a little more of the language slipped away.
Honestly, I’ve found that the grammar is unlike anything in Europe, the sound system is unlike anything most English speakers have ever heard, and it's disappearing faster than anyone can document it.
A real-life Verschlimmbesserung, if there ever was one.
The English word "nice" used to mean the opposite of what it means today.
In the 13th century, it came from the Latin nescius, meaning: ignorant or foolish.
Over the centuries, it shifted through meanings including: "wanton," "lascivious," "foolishly particular," and eventually "pleasant."
It's one of the most dramatic meaning reversals in the English language. It is also shown as a reminder that words are always moving, even when we're not paying attention.
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Have you ever verschlimmbessert something? A DIY project, an email, a recipe? Hit reply and tell me; I read every one.
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