Germany votes on the best anglicism of 2011

A group of German linguists have chosen the best anglicism to enter the German language in the year 2011. The recipient of this controversial honor is not the self-righteous “occupy”. Rather unsurprisingly, it’s not “circeln” – that is, to add someone to a circle on Google+ – either. 2011’s Anglicism of the Year was instead a much more colorful choice, one that is rife with imagery and expressiveness. A word you downright miss when you’re trying to describe it in another language.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Anglizismus des Jahres 2011 is “der Shitstorm”.

“Shitstorm” is a damn good word. I really can’t fault the linguists who bestowed this title upon it. It’s vulgar enough to underline the kind of dirty, ad hominem attacks that characterize a good multiparty row, be it in the blogosphere or the Thanksgivingdinnertable-sphere. But this vulgarity is exactly what is missing when you import the word as-is into German. Even though the vast majority of Germans understand what it means, “shit” isn’t a German word, meaning that your average German child doesn’t fear being misheard by an adult when he or she tries to say “ship” with a mouthful of Twinkie. (Germans also don’t eat Twinkies, but that’s another story.) Nor has any German kid, when just ONCE trying to express their anger by saying that penultimate expletive, been met with a chorus of their peers saying “Awwwwwwwww! You said the s-word! I’m telling!” The taboo is therefore lost.

Which is why, according to Anatol Stefanowitsch, the head of the panel of linguists who made the decision, the word is acceptable in public German parlance. In English, we’re still restricted in the mainstream media to hinting at it by means of special characters and bleeps.