Out with nostalgia: when words become outdated and obsolete

As linguists and editors, we love words – they are, after all, our daily bread, our staple food. In fact, we deal with them constantly, learning new terms in the process. Given the emergence of new words in other languages and fields, you will surely have noticed this too. Admittedly, these so-called neologisms can leave us all baffled at times. I’ve never heard this word before. How do you pronounce it? How do you spell it? What does it mean? 

These linguistic conundrums are not restricted to just new lexical creations, they crop up with old ones too. For example, after a visit by her great-grandmother, my daughter once asked me what the term Backfisch (baked fish) meant. She and her Dreikäsehoch (three-cheese-high) brother didn’t quite understand why the elderly lady was comparing herself to fish in breadcrumbs while reminiscing about her youth.

Delicious old words with hard-to-digest meanings

If, like me, you have a soft spot for old words, you probably know that Backfisch not only refers to breaded fish but also, according to the German dictionary (Duden), to a female teenager. However, the latter meaning is rather old-fashioned. The linguist Friedrich Kluge – best known for his Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Etymological Dictionary of the German Language), first published in 1883 – noted as early as 1895 that the term was probably used as a joke translation of the word baccalaureus (a person with the lowest academic degree) as early as the 16th century and was later completely repurposed to refer to young girls.

Dreikäsehoch, on the other hand, refers to a small child who sometimes tries to make up for their lack of size by being rebellious. The origin of the word can presumably be traced back to the height of three cheese wheels or even boxes (in reference to the French word caisse for box or crate) stacked on top of each other.

In any case, both terms are outdated and no longer used in everyday life, leading to them being classified as obsolete words or archaisms.

Understanding archaisms

The term archaism – borrowed from the Greek archaïsmós (ἀρχαϊσμόϛ = old-fashionedness, imitation of the ancients) – refers to old, antiquated words that are rarely in use today. Their meaning does not seem to be immediately apparent at first glance. In literature in particular, archaisms are often used quite deliberately as a stylistic device to convey an old-fashioned, more formal impression and to revive the aura of bygone times. Within this context, the meaning of such a word can usually still be deduced by the target audience.

Changing world, changing words

Words are equally prone to the ageing process. Eventually, a word may no longer be understood, its meaning simply no longer comprehensible. This is due to the fact that society as a whole is in a constant state of flux, bringing forth new, innovative things on the one hand and displacing old things that lose their purpose and become useless or obsolete on the other. These changes are reflected in language as well, with the words disappearing as the items fell out of use.

This is what happened to the word Bandsalat (ribbon salad), for example. Contrary to its name, which conjures up images of a culinary delicacy, it’s a term used to describe magnetic tape entangled in the mechanics of a playback device, such as a cassette or video recorder. Those of you familiar with them will have vivid memories of how, armed with a pencil, you would wind back up the tape that had run off the reel. With the advent of more modern media such as CDs, this technical glitch faded into the background along with the now old-fashioned recording medium, and the word itself became increasingly forgotten.

Digging a little deeper into the historical linguistic box brings up the word Fidibus. Have you ever heard of it? It meant a resin-rich woodchip or a folded strip of paper that was used in households as a lighting aid to transport a flame, such as when lighting a tobacco pipe. This utilitarian object was finally replaced by the match that emerged at the beginning of the 19th century – and once again, a word was perdu, i.e. lost.

Incidentally, words are not displaced by a mere loss of their historical reference – they are often replaced by alternative, more modern terms. For instance, Oheim and Muhme were terms used to refer to a maternal Onkel (uncle) and Tante (aunt), the Barbier (barber) is now a Frisör (hairdresser), and the modern Anglicism Facility-Manager was, until recently, a Hausmeister (caretaker).

Your linguistic experts for old and new words

The Duden regularly takes linguistic change into account. The 28th edition, published in 2020, lists 3,000 new terms – compared to 300 deleted words that were classified as hardly or no longer in use and therefore done away with. These include Hackenporsche (shopping trolley for senior citizens), Vorführdame (mannequin), Murrkopf (grumpy person) and Grillenhaftigkeit (crankiness, eccentricity).

These numbers on both sides need not leave you feeling blümerant (queasy, unwell, nauseous). If you are looking for the right words and are unsure whether your choice of words is offbeat or à la mode, depending on the type of text and target group, get in touch – no Mumpitz (codswallop) guaranteed!