By now three of those little books exist. They fit into the palm of your hand. They are in German. Very German.

Soon you will see the book “Merkwürdige Wörter 2016” under “work in progress”.

 

The German language as spoken today has 53 million words, whereas “only” around 70,000 words are actively used in everyday life. Ordinary short words, root verbs, everyday nouns, antiquated adjectives… there are very few that catch my eye. These unnoticed but strong single words are indeed noteworthy, bound by myself in little books. By repeating them again and again they become strange:

strange + noteworthy = merkwürdig, condensed in only one German word (you see my problem to translate that ambiguity;-)