Is there a name for this specific concept? Where somebody invents something (to do them good) but then that thing turns around and backfires on them?

  • Wild BillOP
    3•12 days ago

    I really hope there’s a single word for it out there… more convenient yanno.

      • Rhaedas
        12•12 days ago

        There’s probably a German word for the concept that there is a German word for everything.

        • SanguinePar
          8•12 days ago

          Indeed - for OP’s purposes, I came up with this (but I don’t speak German, so it may make no sense at all): Erfindungselbstfehlzündung

          Google seems to like it well enough!

          Or better, Erfindungdererfinderselbstfehlzündung:

            • SanguinePar
              3•12 days ago

              Well, not with that attitude… ;-)

              Nah, fair enough - as I said, I can’t speak German, so was just mucking about trying to get something that might be plausible. Thanks for clarifying.

          • @elvith@feddit.de
            4•12 days ago

            The first one kinda works, but I think it’d be more clear, when used without “selbst”/self, as this would be read to reference the invention instead of the inventor.

            On the other hand, that then feels like “yeah, it didn’t work. The invention misfired and is crap”. Maybe “Erfindungserschafferzerstörer”? (Invention’s creator destructor) but that sounds off, too.

            There’s not really a word that I can come up with that really conveys this meaning. There’s a german saying “wer Andern eine Grube gräbt, fällt selbst hinein” (he, who digs a hole for others, will fall into it by itself). Then there’s the humorous “Rohrkrepierer” (along the lines of “died in the barrel”) which basically means something like “dead on arrival” / that went wrong and didn’t work. So it’d be probably something that references one of those, which would make it work culturally?

        • @stoy@lemmy.zip
          2•11 days ago

          Hey!

          German is not the only language to use compound words!

          Swedish is another good example of a language with compound words.

          The best compound word I can come up with is “Uppfinnarmissöde”

          Uppfinnar - Inventor

          missöde - misadventure or mishap

          So “uppfinnarmissöde” would translate to either “inventor mishap” or “inventor misadventure”, I prefer the latter as it kinda rhymes when you say it.