(tongue in cheek, but true nonetheless) For me this word
applied to my high school algebra class.

One of those weird and wonderful coincidences: today's word is "sitzfleisch" and I am re-reading (after 30 years) Herbert Tarr's novel "The Conversion of Chaplain Cohen", where, at the beginning of chapter 7 I have just come to:

"By the middle of January, with almost a month more still remaining till the end of the course, the men were growing restless. Most of them, veterans of a minimum of seven years of higher education, were weary by now of any additional schooling; their sitzfleisch had clearly been worn to the bone."

What a coincidence.

WELCOME LADYREADER

here are two(2) favorite sitzfleisch quotes:

"They simply hadn't enough Sitzfleisch to squat
under a bho-tree and get to Nirvana by contemplating
anything, least of all their own navel."
- D. H. Lawrence, Things (1928)

"I am always careful to pack a can of sitzfleisch
whenever I have to go to the post office or visit a
friend who wants to show me his entire collection of
baby pictures."
- Ammon Shea, Reading the OED (2008)

Thank you, Luke!

welcome!!

and could anyone comment on why it is sometimes capitalized in the middle of a sentence?

Seitzfleisch for baby pictures is really good.


Hope to see you often LadyReader.

Possibly because German nouns are always capitalized
and it is just copied that way??? Just a suggestion.

No, because tsuwm wants to show off he can write it both ways.

I'm shakin' it here, boss!

heh

well, I noticed that one of Anu's quotes also capitalized it.

I suppose using the capital shows you know your German and not using it means you don't care to show it. (or don't know it)

sit flesh
I love having a word now for 'sitting on my butt, for hours on end, when there are plenty of other things I should be doing'.

Like when I'm quilting. There is not an equivalent word in English that describes this ability.

Yes, Germans are clever with word glue. Besides Sitzfleisch they also have the word Erzatsfleisch, meaning the whole magic world of tempe, tofu, breadcrumbs, mashed beans and Analogkäse.(!?!)

Thank you, Candy! I was wondering how to remember this word. Now with this "butt association" I will be able to remember it.

Possibly because German nouns are always capitalized
and it is just copied that way?

While this is true today, there was a period in the 19th century when the Grimm Brothers and others stopped capitalizing all nouns and followed rules closer to those of English capitalization. You can see it in the Grimm German dictionary (sort of equivalent to the OED in size at least). It did not catch on.

Is that something to eat????

alled an "epoch-making achievement in historical lexicography," the dictionary was compiled by innumerable linguists over the course of a century.

I looked it up. Amazing what one finds on Google.

Now I'm trying to imagine Digitalkäse.

Going back away to when I learnt German at school the word käse always got me confused with kuchen - cheese and cake respectively...I eventually came up with a system to remember them by - cakes in the kitCHEN and dotty moulds (ä) on the cheese. Unfortunately I never had occassion to eat either when I was in Germany

an "epoch-making achievement in historical lexicography,"

Available free online here (link).

Do you and Bran have a cooking show going here?

Sort of confusing, but thanks anyhow. I guess the English
translation loses in the translation.

I was reading this and want to share...sometimes it pays to have sitzeisch.
Car clamping nightmare

Another case of too much bureaucracy .

Haha! Incredible, but impossible to scroll down to aalglatt. I got stuck on abblassen and so I have abbgelasst.

And the site is probably far more understandable to you
to begin with. I was lost totally, but I did translate
it mechanically and tried.

Luke...you don't have to translate manually. I have a function in web browser that I click and it will translate page for me. I don't remember where I got it but it should be easy to find similar.

Sounds good, but for me to install it, is like the last
thing you sent. Will take awhile.