Long-livedness. A German product virtue with a noun of its own, appearing in ecolabel criteria, consumer testing and advertising copy. The lifespan is a stated specification rather than an accident of build quality.
words
The individual case
German administrative and legal language returns to it constantly — im Einzelfall, in the individual case, Einzelfallprüfung, individual examination. The general rule is stated and the particular case is then examined against it.
Revenue and cost centers
American companies divide themselves into functions that generate revenue and functions that consume it, and the language is used openly in budget discussions. Being a cost center is a structural position, and everyone in one knows it.
The acquisition
Acquisition. The German word for a significant purchase, and it carries weight — eine Anschaffung fürs Leben, an acquisition for life. Buying is treated as an event with consequences, not as consumption.
Symptom-fighting
Symptom-fighting. A German word that exists in order to criticize.
Das ist reine Symptombekämpfung — that is pure symptom-treatment — is a standard charge in German political and business argument. It means: you have not understood the problem, and what you are doing will not last.
A culture builds a word like that only when it needs to make the accusation often.
Without a plan
Ohne Plan — without a plan, meaning aimless. Planlos — plan-less, an adjective applied to people, and an insult.
Er hat keinen Plan — he has no plan — is colloquial German for he has no idea. The word for a plan became the word for understanding.
Honesty lasts longest
Honesty lasts longest. A German proverb, and the argument in it is about duration rather than virtue. It does not say honesty is right. It says honesty is what survives — which is the same argument the culture makes about agreements, prices and partnerships.
The inherited piece
Erbstück. German households pass down furniture, tools, kitchenware and machines across generations, and the word for such a piece marks it as inherited rather than merely old. The object was bought once, by somebody else, and is still working.
The cross-entrant
Cross-entrant. The German word for somebody who has moved into a field from outside it. It is not hostile, but it is never neutral either. The word marks the person as having arrived by a side door, and it stays attached to them.
Cause-research
Cause-research. German has a single ordinary word for the activity of investigating why something happened, and it appears in news reports as a matter of course. Die Ursachenforschung läuft — the investigation into causes is running.
There is no English equivalent that is not a phrase. Root cause analysis is consultant’s language. Ursachenforschung is what a newsreader says.