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1) I stumbled upon an actual published citation for this word "For me, popular Gentile epicaricacy is another of the deep mysteries of the Holocaust as unfathomable as the acts to be described in the pages ahead where I relate in graphic detail exactly what “they” said and did." - Jakob Weiss, The Lemberg Mosaic (2010) unfortunately, this appears to be a self-published work, so it's unlikely to be of any help in getting the word into any legitimate dictionary. 2) wiktionary has several earlier citations. none of them appear too helpful either. citations 3) as to "pronunciation-hobbled epicaricacy", here is a link to someone actually pronouncing it: hear, here ___ epicaricacy (I should probly change my pronunciation guide..)
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Pooh-Bah
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That was an interesting link in the wiktionary.
Just how many times does a word need to be used, to make it legit!
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Just how many times does a word need to be used, to make it legit!You'd have to ask one of those harmless drudges (a lexicographer). The "problem" with epicaricacy is that it seems to have shown up in a dictionary (a later, posthumous, edition of Bailey's) before it ever made it into print. (At least, nobody has been able to cite its use before it showed up in a dictionary.) Of course, once something makes it into the dictionary (cf. dord), it's fair game for adoption. This word's champions insist that it is an English alternative to the German schadenfreude, when in fact epicaricacy is a loanword from Greek. Plato, in his Nicomachean Ethics, is the first person to use it or its Greek equivalent ἐπιχαιρεκακία ( epikhairekakia). Schadenfreude, on the other hand, was coined in German (in a translation of Seneca and about a thousand years later). It's pretty much a word at this point. It's just that not many people know about it, use it, or care. As opposed to other synonyms, it does have much to suggest itself for use over its cousin. They pretty much mean the same thing. Go ahead and use it if you want to or must, but I'll stick with schadenfreude, which has the advantage of not needing footnotes when you use it.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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This word's champions insist that it is an English alternative to the German schadenfreude, when in fact epicaricacy is a loanword from Greek. Only epicaricacy has had the Greek edges knocked off it. I we spelled schadenfreude shaddenfroyde or pronounced it SAdnfr\ud I might buy this argument. Note: This not to say that I wouldn't use schadenfreude rather than epicaricacy to express this concept, but I still might have to explain what it meant.
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>Only epicaricacy has had the Greek edges knocked off it.
yes, prezactly! it's been Englished (at least by Bailey) for a lot longer than that German thingname.
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it's been Englished ... for a lot longer than that German thingname.
And yet, it fell out of use (though I doubt it was ever used outside of a university lecture hall), while its German younger cousin is still used today. And, FWIW, most people today do not pronounce schadenfreude in the same manner as a German would.
And, the e-word doesn't much look English to me. It's more of a pseudo-Greekish looking thang. But, by all means, carry on.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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"What a fearful thing it is that any language "should possess a word to express the pleasure which men feel at the "calamities of others; for the existence of the word bears testimony "to the existence of the thing! And yet such in more languages "than one may be found!" In the Greek the word is ἐπιχαιρεκακία, and in German we have Schadenfreude, Schadenlust, and Schadenfroheit, all meaning the same thing."
- Archbishop Trench, On the Study of Words (1851)
or, in a (slightly) broader sense, to gloat..
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ἐπιχαιρεκακία
So, I've never doubted that the Greek word ἐπιχαιρεκακία a word that was used. As indeed There is an earlier citation of ἐπιχαιρεκακία in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy in the early 17th century. I don't even have a problem if you wish to claim ἐπιχαιρεκακία as an English word, but let's not mistake epicaricacy for ἐπιχαιρεκακία. I wonder if Trench knew that the e-word existed in that later edition of Bailey's dictionary and did not use it here writing something "(whence our English epicaricacy)", but did not because he could not bring himself use such a word. This quotation is supposed to be the first use of the word schadenfreude in English, but it still seems German to me in this context.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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"Out of these two arise those mixed affections and passions of anger, which is a desire of revenge; hatred, which is inveterate anger; zeal, which is offended with him who hurts that he loves; and ἐπιχαιρεκακία [epikhairekakia], a compound affection of joy and hate, when we rejoice at other men's mischief, and are grieved at their prosperity; pride, self-love, emulation, envy, shame, &c., of which elsewhere."
- Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
in a like manner, we could suppose, then, that Burton couldn't bring himself to use the German thingname. < g >
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it's also interesting to note that Burton lumped the two sides of the coin into one concept (he called the e-word): a compound affection of joy and hate but, as we now know, someone coined freudenschade to be the 'opposite' of schadenfreude.
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