Comment by bryanrasmussen
12 hours ago
since schaden is damage and freude is joy, not sure what it should be - maybe Schadeleichtig hmm...
12 hours ago
since schaden is damage and freude is joy, not sure what it should be - maybe Schadeleichtig hmm...
>maybe Schadeleichtig
Maybe "Erleichterung" (relief)? But as a German "Schadenserleichterung" (also: notice the "s" between both compound word parts) rather sounds like a reduction of damage (since "Erleichterung" also means mitigation or alleviation).
right I thought of that at first and discarded it for that reason. Which the problem really is that the normal story of how Schadenfreude works as a bit of German language how to is that the component that it is other people's damage that is sparking joy is missing from the word itself, that interpretation must be known by the word user, if you were just creating the word and nobody had heard it before in the world it would be pretty reasonable for people to think you had just created a new word for masochism.