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Here are five words that exist in German, but not in English.
This is the state of requiring a good explanation.
It’s that moment when you’re caught in a situation that makes you look bad,
and you really do have to explain yourself,
but you can’t work out how to do it convincingly.
It’s when your spouse comes home early from work,
to find you wearing somebody else’s underwear;
or when a police officer stops you taking a walk
in the middle of the night while wearing a balaclava and carrying a crowbar.
This is a face that is so ugly,
it would actually be improved if somebody were to punch it.
A bit like this one.
This is when you’ve been working for a company so long,
and are so familiar with its products,
that you are no longer able to see its shortcomings.
For example, you may have designed a wonderful product that makes perfect sense to you,
but all your customers are complaining that it’s far too complicated
and they can’t even understand the instruction book.
If you then say:
“What’s the big deal? It’s so obvious, a child of five could do it,”
the chances are you’re “betriebsblind”.
This is somebody who has either the skills or the dumb luck
to survive everything that life can throw at him.
He may have lost his job, gone through a messy divorce,
and failed to qualify for unemployment benefit; and yet...
...he still manages to feed himself and keep a roof over his head,
and keep cheerful and smile at everybody all the time.
Perhaps the scariest word in the German language,
this is somebody who drives down the autobahn the wrong way.
What’s even scarier
is the thought that there actually is a need for this word.