Due to the possibility of chaining nouns, the German language knows more words than only a few languages in the world. There should be 5.3 million, with new ones constantly being added. In addition to the administration (legendary: “Beef Labeling Monitoring Tasks Transfer Act”), politics is above all creative. She has perfected the art of combining two words in such a way that the meaning is twisted into the opposite.
“Defense offensive,” for example, a term currently being used in the debate about the defense budget, has a timeless beauty. Defend and attack at the same time. What is meant is an increase in defense spending. The category of concealment when spending money definitely includes “special assets”, which are not assets at all, but on the contrary a pile of debts. You take out a huge loan and park the money in a special account in order to make certain expenses. The loan still has to be repaid. By the way, the “defense offensive” currently underway is being paid for from a “special fund”. The whole thing is also being sold as a “turning point,” even though, as we all know, time doesn’t go wrong.
“When there is an investment backlog, it is not the investments that are piling up, but the lack of investments that are being made.
The “investment backlog” that has accumulated in the Bundeswehr must ultimately be resolved. Another word like that. When there is an investment backlog, it is not the investments that are piling up, but the lack of investments that are being made. So it’s really about an investment hole – which not only the German armed forces are rumbling about, but also the railways and drivers. The latter are potholes.
And so forth. People are particularly inventive in social policy. Children of foreign parents have a “migrant background” and those who are handicapped in some way are called “children with special needs” in schools. As if one should be ashamed of the true facts. Politics also invented the “opportunity society”. This is a political model that first accepts or even provokes the disadvantage of people, be they those with a “migrant background”, those who “need support” or simply the poor, in order to then give them another chance. The inventors of the word want to be praised for it. Like Friedrich Merz (CDU) for his “leading culture”. This is a culture that everyone should recognize, especially people with a “migrant background”. Otherwise that was it with the chances.
To person:
- The wage earner Werner Kolhoffborn in 1956, worked for the Berliner Tagesspiegel and the Berliner Zeitung, was spokesman for the Berlin Senate and headed a correspondent’s office.
- Today he works as a political columnist in the capital.
- You can reach the author at redaktion@om-medien.de.
2023-12-22 20:09:58
#German #language #dominant #culture #terms #online
