Thursday, May 29, 2008

Word of the Day

Avenue Q is coming to Charlotte soon. And Mandi sent me today's word of the day, which happens to be:

Word of the Day
Thursday May 29, 2008

schadenfreude \SHOD-n-froy-duh\, noun:
A malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortunes of others.


That the report of Sebastian Imhof's grave illness might also have been tinged with Schadenfreude appears not to have crossed Lucas's mind.
-- Steven Ozment, Flesh and Spirit

He died three years after me -- cancer too -- and at that time I was still naive enough to imagine that what the afterlife chiefly provided were unrivalled opportunities for unbeatable gloating, unbelievable schadenfreude.
-- Will Self, How The Dead Live

Somewhere out there, Pi supposed, some UC Berkeley grad students must be shivering with a little Schadenfreude of their own about what had happened to her.
-- Sylvia Brownrigg, The Metaphysical Touch

The historian Peter Gay -- who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics -- has said that it "can be one of the great joys of life."
-- Edward Rothstein, "Missing the Fun of a Minor Sin", New York Times, February 5, 2000


Sometimes I do feel like I'm here for everyone else's benefit...that at least, with all the crap going on in my life, someone can feel better about theirs. Making the world a better place to be...

3 comments:

Mandi said...

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEeet :) See ya in a few months!

Chris said...

Avenue Q is so funny! Love the word of the day schadenfreude! Yeah, I'm with you, I'm sure some has looked at my life, and it has made them feel so much better about their own. Glad to be of service. We'll get the last though!

Anonymous said...

Like I said in gym class: Well, somebody has to be last. It might as well be me because I would rather excel at something useful, like making people feel better.

P.S. ...and where are all those jocks, now?