Jason Feifer of the Morning News explains the concept of schadenfreude, and why we have it in spades for upper class teen plagiarist Kaavya Viswanathan. "The one thing we haven’t done...is fully bring the word into our daily language. If that’s out of a lack of familiarity, Kaavya Viswanathan may have done wonders to fix it. This word shouldn’t be considered on loan from Germany, it should be used commonly and widely, fully integrated into the way we express ourselves. We’d be more honest that way. Its very existence forces us to confront something dark and unflattering—because really, how can you argue with language, a tool built specifically to express what’s inside us?"
I've been seeing this word around a lot more lately.
Then again I'd only learned what it meant about a year ago when reading a review for a book by Rick Perlstein on Barry Goldwater's Presidential campaign in 1964, so I'd probably seen it many times but simply glossed over it. It's amazing how often that happens with words you learn.
Posted by: bejeebus | May 11, 2006 at 12:09 PM