Dear everyone
Many thanks for the great repsonse I got to my question about this word.
Thanks too to those who translated the strophe for me ("change a word and get a
third" they say in the music business, - but alas this one isn't for a fee ;-)
Many people asked to hear conclusions:
Interestingly about 2/3 of people thought only 'worn out' was there; 1/3 thought
both - vernutzen as a (Grassian)amalgam of verbraucheen / abnutzen with echoes
of verschmutzen and verschlissen though varied as to which was dominant. Overall
concluson a word so overused that it ceases to have meaning (which to me implies
a type of misuse).
Most interestingly very many native speakers told me it simply wasn't a word --
although googling it reveals that it is quite widely in both meanings, though
only exists (as yet) in dictionaries as the C19th vernützen: durch Benutzung
aubrauchen, verderben; mhd. vernutzen.
Is this a case of the langage being ahead of or behind the acadmey?
As one collegaue pointed out quite rightly though: vernutzen is of course
precisely a word not yet vernutzt.
I shall transalte it as dog-eared - mainly to echo decade in the line before but
take full and absolute repsonsibility for all resulting horror.
best wishes and thanks again
Karen
Karen
--
Dr K.J. Leeder
Reader in German
Fellow and Tutor in German,
New College, Oxford
