Since 1991 a jury has chosen the Unwort des Jahres, the non-word of the year. Horst Dieter Schlosser started it. Until 1994 the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache, the Society for the German Language, made the choice. Today an independent jury of volunteers in Marburg decides. Its permanent members are four linguists and a journalist, and each year a guest member joins them. Anyone can send in a proposal. Among other things, the jury looks for words that are beschönigend, verschleiernd oder irreführend, glossing over, concealing or misleading. On 13 January 2026 it chose Sondervermögen, special assets, for the year 2025. The jury said that the word hides its real meaning, which is taking on debt.
An Evening for the Coalition
In August 2025 the coalition of CDU, CSU and SPD was quarreling. Jens Spahn, leader of the Union’s parliamentary group, told the magazine Focus that the members should also meet outside regular politics. He suggested einen gemeinsamen Abend, quasi als Teambuilding-Maßnahme, a joint evening, more or less as a teambuilding measure. His SPD counterpart, Matthias Miersch, said: Wir versuchen, miteinander eine gute Vertrauensbasis aufzubauen. We are trying to build a good basis of trust together. Spahn stressed that trust needs time.
Words for Closeness That Comes Too Soon
sich anbiedern
To curry favor by acting overly familiar.
plumpe Vertraulichkeit
Crude familiarity.
distanzlos
Without distance. It is said of a person who comes too close.
aufdringlich
Pushy, intrusive.
jemandem zu nahe treten
To step too close to someone. It means to offend him.
jemandem auf die Pelle rücken
To move onto someone’s skin. It means to crowd him.
One Notices the Intention
In the second act of Goethe’s play Torquato Tasso, the poet Tasso speaks to the princess about her friend Leonore Sanvitale. Leonore can seem very charming, he says, but he could seldom be fully open with her. Und wenn sie auch / Die Absicht hat, den Freunden wohl zu tun, / So fühlt man Absicht, und man ist verstimmt. And even when she means to do her friends good, one feels the intention, and one is put out. The line became a common German saying in a shorter form. Man merkt die Absicht und ist verstimmt. One notices the intention and is annoyed. Germans use it when friendliness seems to serve a purpose.
When a Friendship Disqualifies a Judge
Under Section 42 of the German Code of Civil Procedure, a party may reject a judge for Besorgnis der Befangenheit, fear of bias. A reason is enough if it is geeignet ist, Misstrauen gegen die Unparteilichkeit eines Richters zu rechtfertigen, suitable to justify distrust of the judge’s impartiality. In November 2020 the Federal Court of Justice decided such a case. Neighbors in a condominium were in a dispute over a parking space. The wife of the presiding judge had been friends with one of the defendants for years. The court found the challenge to the judge justified. A mere acquaintance or a loose friendship, it said, is as a rule not enough. Anders ist es aber bei einer engen bzw. langjährigen Freundschaft. It is different with a close or long-standing friendship. This holds whether or not the judge himself has contact with the party.
Neighbors in Sie
Since 2002 the broadcaster WDR has produced a Tatort set in Münster. Its two investigators are the police detective Frank Thiel and the forensic pathologist Karl-Friedrich Boerne. Thiel rents an apartment in Boerne’s building, so the two men are also neighbors. They solve murders together, they mock each other, and they say Sie to each other. In their 20th case, broadcast in September 2011, they drink to brotherhood and say du for one evening. The next morning they wake up with a hangover, and they are back to Sie. Before the broadcast, an interviewer asked the actor Axel Prahl whether the two would ever say du for good. Prahl answered: Keinesfalls! Not at all! The Münster episode Fangschuss had about 14.6 million viewers in 2017.
The Porcupines
In 1851 Arthur Schopenhauer published Parerga und Paralipomena. In the second volume he tells a parable. Eine Gesellschaft Stachelschweine drängte sich, an einem kalten Wintertage, recht nahe zusammen. A group of porcupines pressed close together on a cold winter day. They wanted to warm each other, but their quills hurt. So they moved apart, then together again, until they found a distance they could bear. Schopenhauer applies this to people. The need for company drives them together, and their unpleasant qualities push them apart. Die mittlere Entfernung, die sie endlich herausfinden, the middle distance that they finally find, is die Höflichkeit und feine Sitte, politeness and good manners. A person with much eigene, innere Wärme, inner warmth of his own, prefers to stay away from society.
We Can Do Everything, Except Standard German
In 1999 the state government of Baden-Württemberg began an image campaign with the agency Scholz & Friends. Its closing line became a catchphrase: Wir können alles. Außer Hochdeutsch. We can do everything, except standard German. The agency’s case study names the problem that the campaign had to solve. Baden-Württemberg galt auch als das Land der leistungsorientierten Streber. Baden-Württemberg was also seen as the land of achievement-driven swots. So the campaign showed people die Spitzenleistungen vollbracht haben und dabei sympathisch und menschlich geblieben sind, who had achieved top performance and had stayed likable and human. The self-irony, the agency wrote, beweist Größe und macht sympathisch. It shows greatness and makes people likable.
So Comfortable to Leave It to Others
Immanuel Kant dated his essay Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? in Königsberg on 30 September 1784. In it he describes how easy it is to leave judgment to others. Es ist so bequem, unmündig zu sein. It is so comfortable to be immature. Habe ich ein Buch, das für mich Verstand hat, einen Seelsorger, der für mich Gewissen hat, einen Arzt, der für mich die Diät beurteilt, u.s.w., so brauche ich mich ja nicht selbst zu bemühen. If I have a book that has understanding for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a doctor who judges my diet for me, and so on, then I need not make any effort myself. Ich habe nicht nötig zu denken, wenn ich nur bezahlen kann. I do not need to think, as long as I can pay.
Where Concepts Are Missing
In the study scene of Goethe’s Faust I, a new student asks Mephistopheles for advice. Mephistopheles tells him: Im ganzen – haltet Euch an Worte! On the whole, keep to words! The student objects: Doch ein Begriff muß bei dem Worte sein. But there must be a concept behind the word. Mephistopheles answers: Denn eben wo Begriffe fehlen, / Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein. For just where concepts are missing, a word turns up at the right moment. Mit Worten läßt sich trefflich streiten, / Mit Worten ein System bereiten. With words one can argue splendidly, and with words one can build a system. The advice comes from the devil.