Got an email today from an online acquaintance. Hate to say that I actually experienced this on more then one occasion, but I have. Very surprised that there is no English word equivalent. An example of this word is that you loose everything and the bank viciously evicts you from your home (since you can't pay the mortgage) and comphiscates it. They then try to recoup their so called loss, but the house burns to the ground so they loose most of their investment. Later, the U.S Government closes that bank down for bad dealings and the person directly responsible for evicting you from your property goes to jail. Hate to say that this would bring me joy, but it would (never said that I was perfect; lol). Anyway, definitely not a cool word, but a word that I believe many have experienced at least once in their lifetime. Sad for our humanity.

lol, cool word.

I wonder what the word is for wanted to see others be personally destroyed (like all of D.C.). lol

Anyway, I know; sort of committed a slight sight crime, but please don't make me pay a bad price for my thought.

that's called getting his comeuppance

Even in Dutch there's no equivalent.
Schaden is loss of things or persons.
Freude is joy.
I tried google translate but it gives "vrolijkheid" in Dutch and "glee" in English.
At least they are consistent glee == vrolijkheid.
Gerard.

In case you were wondering how to pronounce it there's a link to a sound file on this dictionary page.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/schadenfreude

I am always reminded of Charlie Brown's exclamation of "Good grief!" whenever the word schadenfreude is mentioned.

It seems that nowadays the understanding of the word (American-wise) is more focused upon taking satisfaction in the tribulations of others; when I was a lad it seemed that schadenfreude was more often used in reference to delight in one's own misfortunes (i.e., behavior associated with those we might now term "drama queens").

sounds like something that a lot of the money lenders/Loan Sharks should be charged with. LOL

I would say that would still be reveling in others misfortune but I would differentiate between those who deserve misfortune and those who don't. Seinfeld based an entire show on schadenfreude. Remember the episode where Jerry purchased stock and the more money he lost, the happier Kramer became? That's where I have a problem.

I don't want to see others fail. I like seeing others succeed, especially friends. I tend to distance myself from those who revel in others misfortune. However, some people do deserve what they get.

Oh, I do agree with you Tux. I just had to share this word when I got the email since I have not heard it before, but, sinner I am and still hate to admit that I've had this experience multiple times and only later in life do I see how sad that really is. I'm sure I'm schadenfreude to someone else especially how bad my life's been after April 2002. Still, I live to see another day. Hate only ends up killing you so I've worked a lot to remove hate from my being (and am happy to say that most of that cr@p is gone from me and am a happier being because of it). My personality (ESFP if you ever have taken a Meyers-Briggs test) holds on to the adage of Eat, Drink, and be Merry for you know not that you live to see another day.

I started a parallel thread on this one at another site I frequent and someone there mentioned this cool quote that sort of is the other side of this word. Thought I would share that quote here too to augment this thread. lol



"Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies."

-Gore Vidal

Here's a pretty cool site where you type in a word and it finds a lot of sentences where the word was used in online articles. If you click the arrow to the right of the example, you can open the whole article.

http://fraze.it/n_search.jsp?q=schadenf ... 0&sugg=off

Wow; that word has gone around and in American publications to boot. No real need to create an English word since a German one will suffice (sort of a pun in that English is a Germanic language; lol).