Weekly Word: Weissnichtwo
The 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee is this week, and the website lists two of the spellers’ favorite words: humuhumunukunukuapuaa (”a small Hawaiian triggerfish”) and Weissnichtwo, which is “an indefinite, unknown, or imaginary place”. I don’t even know how to pronounce it, never mind spell it!
This obscure German word (meaning “know not where”) was made up by Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle. Weissnichtwo was the name of a fictional city in the book Sartor Resartus, Carlyle’s major work. You’ll have to read the book (or at least the Wikipedia entry) to figure out the reason behind the name.
By the way, I’m actually very familiar with that other word, humuhumunukunukuapuaa. We had one in our fish tank when I was little. It was a cute, tiny little thing; as they say, “the name is longer than the fish” (see Wikipedia). But wow, did that fish have teeth! Ever since then, those painful nips at my fingertips are what I remember best when I think about the state fish of Hawaii.
July 29th, 2009
To clear something up with that mysterious german word
Weissnichtwo doesnt exist like that in the german language, the right spelling would be:
nicht (not) wo (where) and the pronounciation is not that easy for an english speaking person, because you spell the two letters “ch” in “nicht” like “k” but in german it sounds different.
Weiss nicht wo - its actually three words like you mentioned - Weiss (know - but its also the german word for white
you find an audiofile with the pronounciation here: http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&p=wlqAU.&search=nicht
just klick the little speaker-icon beside the “nicht”-entry…
greetings
robert