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Am 02.03.2015 um 08:20 schrieb Doctor John:
> I am used to seeing, and have internalised the meanings of, words such
> as Schadenfreude, Merkwelt, Zeitgeist and Realpolitik. However, I have
> just come across a new (to me) addition to the list of German
> borrow-words used in English: Zwischendinge. What, exactly, does it mean?
>
> I learnt to speak German in school, so I understand that the word's
> literal translation is 'between things' but that does not help with the
> concept that it is meant to convey. In the context of the report in
> which I read it, there seems to be some ambiguity: it may refer to
> either the world-shaping events that dramatically alter our view of the
> world (Merkwelt, see above) or the period between these world-shaping
> events. Which is it?
As a genuine German word, a "Zwischending" is something that is neither
A nor B but something in between - things that in the world of biology
would be called a transitory forms, hybrid or - most fitting - chimera.
For instance, a trike could be called a "Zwischending" between a
motorcycle and a car.
In your case, "Zwischendinge" would be more likely to mean the time
periods between world-shaping events than those events themselves.
However, even more likely it might mean the smaller events leading from
one such world-shaping event to another. Either would be considered
inappropriate use of the word though, because neither time intervals nor
events are "Dinge" (things).
BTW, "Merkwelt" isn't a common German word at all; it's a highly
techical term in Psychology, and while it does refer to a mental "image"
of the world, it's not that high-level mental image of our world and
society (that would be "Weltbild"), but the low-level mental image of
the physical world generated directly from our senses.
For instance, Virtual Reality goggles change the Merkwelt of the user by
supplying fake visual input; at the same time, they also change our
Weltbild by introducing the notion that we might be living in an
entirely fake world without even knowing.
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