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To: abclily

"What goes around, comes around. Deal with it."

True.

http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2000/05/10.html

schadenfreude \SHAHD-n-froy-duh\, noun:
A malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others.

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

Often the people Pi met in Mendocino wanted to hear these terrible stories, the personal disasters, or they quoted them back to her from what they'd read, with a certain glitter in their eyes -- giving Pi the chance to wonder again as she once had in a Wittgenstein seminar why there wasn't a word in English for Schadenfreude, that very human pleasure taken in other people's misery.
--Sylvia Brownrigg, The Metaphysical Touch

If self-replicating e-commerce baby tycoons get on your nerves, it's schadenfreude time. It's true that the Nasdaq rebounded after its staggering loss Tuesday. Nonetheless, what AP described as "the most volatile day ever for U.S. stocks" left a distinctly bearish aftertaste.
--"Market Motion Sickness." The Industry Standard's Media Grok, April 5, 2000






Schadenfreude comes from the German, from Schaden, damage + Freude, joy. It is often capitalized, as it is in German.



12 posted on 07/04/2004 5:57:17 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
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To: COUNTrecount

"We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people."--La Rouchefoucald


38 posted on 07/04/2004 8:18:16 AM PDT by avenir (Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous / Look at them, who can blame us / Lessons in the subject of decay)
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