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Michael Polanyi's "The Tacit Dimension" is a good starting point on the concept.


Whenever I am encountering an abstract concept internally, it does not appear as a clear visual representation but rather as its gestalt. Then there are two things happening. 1. most of these seem to bring their own set of keywords with them. 2. on the basis of these keywords I can further probe the concept using my internal monologue, like using a spotlight to get more details and pulling it out of the twilight of its gestalt. Step 2 is only necessary to explain the concept to others or put it in writing. All in all the transfer from gestalt concept to language sure leaves something behind but it also adds something that it could not have on its own.


Not quite. The Spießbürger is aggressively oriented towards rule-abiding behaviour and is always keen on enforcing said rules and regulations within it's environment. Also the Spießbürger finds rather creative ways to "persuade" others within his reach to abide by said rules and regulations.


The funny thing is that a lot of the people who hate Spießbürgers like to impose rules and regulations on people and tell them what they are allowed to say or think.


Wow this is wonderful, thank you. I am wondering if something similar exists for German.


Potentially the Deutsches Wörterbuch started by the Brothers Grimm: http://woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB


  SPORT, m. leibesübung als spiel und zum vergnügen; ein englisches wort,
  das die vergnügungen des feldes, der jagd, wettrennen, schwimmen und sonst 
  allerlei kurzweil nach festen regeln ausgeführt, bedeutet, im mittelenglischen 
  disport, mit dem verbum disporten sich vergnügen, lautet und auf altfranz. 
  desport, ital. diporto belustigung, freude, vergnügen, zurückgeht. die sache
  selbst erscheint in nachahmung englischen brauchs mit dem namen vereinzelt 
  bereits in den 50 er jahren des 19. jahrh. (vgl. unten sportneuigkeit von 1855),
  hat aber erst in den letzten jahrzehnten des 19. jahrh. so um sich gegriffen,
  dasz das wort völlig in die deutsche sprache eingebürgert ist: sport treiben; 
  jagd-, reit-, renn-, schwimmsport; rittersport Freytag bilder 2, 1, 4; 
  dem sport huldigen, den sport pflegen.
There it is, "vergnügungen des feldes", roughly "diversion of the field" :)


That’s a great find. I’m just wondering, why are all nouns lowercased in this dictionary’s definitions?

> leibesübung als spiel und zum vergnügen; ein englisches wort


The project slightly predates a standardized German orthography and the original manuscript used its own capitalization conventions: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Grimm_W%...


For french the best equivalent that I know of would be the littré[0] but I would also be interested in alternatives.

https://www.littre.org/


I could use one for Spanish.


Nature is and never has been equilibrium. Nature is chaos.


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