Benutzung von "nichtsdestotrotz" / "nichtsdestotrotz" usage

Question

"Nichtsdestotrotz" is one of the most complicated words that I had to deal with during my first stays in Germany not so long ago. Someone I had to report to was making very frequent use of it (even in official communication) and I never could understand how or when to use it properly. Everyone told me it was a synonym for trotzdem, and everyone told me they had never made use of this word, but that its usage seemed quite okay. My dictionary told me it was "umgangssprachlich", so I didn't bother.

I recently found out a small answer on Wikipedia that didn't exist when I first figured out how to write this word. It explains the word is originally a kind of student pun between the two synonyms "nichtsdestoweniger" (~nonetheless) and "trotzdem" (~regardless) but that nowadays it is considered okay to use it in a formal way.

On the web (leo forums, duden online) I also found out the word could have been an invention of Kurt Tucholsky, who was a satirist.

So this is my question: Is this word really usable in (formal) conversations, or is it still understood as a grammatical absurdity used only in oral conversations to point out a useless accumulation of words, as a kind of pun or simply to point out the fact that one doesn't want to bother choosing between "trotzdem" and "nichtsdestoweniger" (this kind of things happen frequently in my native language) ?

Answer 1

To me, nichtsdestotrotz sounds absolutely correct as a synonym of jedoch. (The proper usage of trotzdem is another can of worm.) It would not seem jarring to me to see it in a formal document. I would certainly expect it more in a legal document than in an informal email.

Ngram speaks a very clear message that nichtsdestotrotz is on the rise and nichtsdestoweniger is waning:

So, better start to get used to it now.

Answer 2

To my and this answer's supporters opinion it is not usable in formal conversations. Rather use “nichtsdestoweniger” or one of its other synonyms.

Answer 3

To judge from Google Books, the word seems to have first appeared in print in the 1920s (one hit), with little peaks of popularity in the 1940s and 1960s. Use in print seems to be almost always non-jocular. Only recently it has reached something close to the popularity of the well established nichtsdestoweniger -- perhaps because nowadays many consider the two words equivalent and nichtsdestotrotz is shorter by two syllables.

Comparing the Google Books hits for nichtsdestotrotz and nichtsdestoweniger, the latter tend to be professionally edited and the former mostly look like academic niche publications, which generally don't receive much attention to word use.

I think I first encountered this word used in a serious context (diploma thesis) in the late 1990s. I was shocked by the writer's poor sense of language, as the nature of the word as a silly pun is quite obvious, I had only ever heard it used jocularly before, and the writer quite obviously didn't mean it humorously at all. Meanwhile the shock value is severely reduced (I just cringe a bit) because non-jocular use has spread so far, but I would seriously advise against using the word that way because there are plenty of safe alternatives. It is never necessary, and there is a chance you will sound stupid to some people.

However, in those situations when using a jocular made-up word such as neverthespite would be at least borderline acceptable in English, nichtsdestotrotz is probably a good choice. I think this post was the first time I have actually written this silly word. I am in my forties.

Answer 4

In my view the word nichtdestotrotz doesn't belong to normal language. It it awkward and much too long. There are enough normal words to express opposition such as aber, jedoch, dennoch, trotzdem. As to me I have never used that ugly word.

I remember that a teacher at school occasionally used that word to get a stylistic or humorous effect. But it wasn't a word we pupils used. It would have been ridiculous if one of us had used "nichtdestotrotz".