Timeline for Odd use(s) of "bauen"
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 20 at 9:14 | comment | added | bakunin | One could argue that if the meaning @tofro mentioned wouldn't have been already contained in "bauen" the youth slang of the sixties wouldn't have used it. It can happen that a concept a word expresses "lies dormant" for some time until it is "reawakened". (Perhaps the there are more fitting linguistic terms for that but I am not a linguist.) | |
| Feb 19 at 15:13 | comment | added | Peter - Reinstate Monica | In my mind "bauen" includes both a somewhat active role (the accident didn't just "happen" to him, he actively caused it, likewise when he f*cked up) and perhaps even an element of staging, as opposed to a simple, straight-forward act. | |
| Feb 18 at 9:13 | vote | accept | RDBury | ||
| Feb 18 at 9:13 | comment | added | RDBury | I like the youth slang idea. (This is what happens when you practice a foreign language by watching cartoons.) The Ngrams seem to prove that the phrase dates back at most about 50 years. Other likely seeming combinations don't seem to be used though; I tried "Skandal bauen", "Schaden bauen", "Lärm bauen", "Stau bauen" and "Tod bauen". The conclusion I'm drawing is that the phrase is one of a group of related idioms. | |
| Feb 17 at 14:14 | comment | added | HalvarF | @tofro In modern German, bauen does not mean "to grow" or generally "to make", and it hasn't for hundreds of years. To say that there was a direct line from Germanic uses of "bhû" over Luther's use up to "Mist bauen" and "einen Unfall bauen" would be quite daring. I have trouble believing that. | |
| Feb 17 at 13:42 | comment | added | tofro | That meaning of "bauen" as "to cause something" is much older than 1960 - It actually was one of the core notions of the Germanic/Gothic "bhû", where "bauen" was derived from. | |
| Feb 17 at 10:01 | history | answered | HalvarF | CC BY-SA 4.0 |