Comment by eqvinox
15 hours ago
As a German, I might not have thought of that but would absolutely use it to translate Verschlimmbesserung. Does it sound "normal" enough to native English speakers?
15 hours ago
As a German, I might not have thought of that but would absolutely use it to translate Verschlimmbesserung. Does it sound "normal" enough to native English speakers?
I'm darn sure that in time the original German pronounciation would be lost and you'd hear something comparable to reading Straße as "Strabe".
Probably it would become "verskimbeserong".
It's totally plausible portmanteau. I get the feeling thought that it sounds more marked in English than in German where these kind of mashups are formed more freely.
The sibling post's "disimprovement" sounds more natural and has parallel form with pre-existing broadly accepted English words like "disincentive" and "disinfect".
Not sure if that's just me, but "disimprovement" sounds like *removing* an improvement that was previously there…
It's definitely a normal-sounding, memorable word for us native English speakers.
Meanwhile I won't be able to remember that German word longer than it takes me to close this tab. Vershumthingsomething.
Thumbs up, let's settle on that translation
I'm Dutch, sounds pretty good to me