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I know the word Pechsträhne (streak of bad luck) or maybe even Pechvogel (unlucky person) would fit the case, or even Schwein gehabt! if he survives (or Schadenfreude for what some observers may feel)
Then one German speaker told me the following word: Clownenschadenmitbananaundsafeleiderkaputt. Is this a valid word that can be used?
German compound nouns are often made fun of because of their length. To nonspeakers, they look monstrous and incomprehensible. But in reality, they are quite simple.
There's always at least two parts, with the first part determining the second and the second part being a noun.
Verkehrsunfall: accident in traffic
Nasenspray: spray for nose
Klimaleugner: denier of climate (i.e. climate change)
Then there's recursion: A compound may be used as the first part of another compound.
Verkehrsunfallstatistik: statistic about accidents in traffic
Nasenspraysucht: addiction to spray for nose
Klimaleugnerthese: proposition by denier of climate
These compounds may be well-established, such as Verkehrsunfallstatistik, they may be occasional, such as Nasenspraysucht, or they can be created ad hoc, such as Klimaleugnerthese.
As the literal translations indicate, these compounds are quite easily understood if read from right to left. However, when reading quickly, proper segmentation (at least for long or rare compounds) is sometimes a problem even for native speakers, which is why spellings with a hyphen, such as Nasenspray-Sucht, are becoming more popular.
The problem with
clownenschadenmitbananaundsafeleiderkaputt
is that it does not follow the rules for compound nouns: There's a prepositional phrase (mit Banane), a conjunction (und), an adverb (leider) and an adjective (kaputt) all mushed together, without any nouns that could serve as second part.
Most commonly this is referred to as
Tresorsturzopferclownausrutschbananenvorfall
Which translate to incident related to a banana on which the clown, that is victim of a falling safe, is slipping
Then one German speaker told the following word clownenschadenmitbananaundsafeleiderkaputt.
Apart from the fact that this is not a German word, it is nonsense. It still would be nonsense if the typos were corrected. Just forget it.
The cartoon is nothing more than a satiric side-blow on the German language and the German characteristic of creating new words for anything (e.g. see the famous Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz).
So, no there is really NO existing German word for that specific situation, and I doubt we can create one that would make sense for German ears.
The only word I have in mind is "Doppelpech". It means that someone has "doppeltes Pech", i.e. someone experiences two bad things at the same time.
However, you won't find it in official dictionaries and it's not used very often.
I suspect that this person either was not a German speaker or was poking fun at people who think that German compound nouns are funny (or both). While this is the subject of the cartoon, it is only funny because it suggests something impossible. Clownschadenmitbananeundsafeleiderkaputt is a pseudo-sentence without whitespace and is not a word by any stretch. It falls short of being funny. And there is of course no German word that describes all the unrelated things you see in the cartoon, and one cannot be constructed.
"Pechsträhne" is ok, but usually used in connection with an extended period of bad luck, "dumm gelaufen" (~shit happens) could be used for the situation, given the satirical context, which, by the way, is rather banal.
"Clownenschadenmitbananaundsafeleiderkaputt" you mention is not even remotely a German expression, even the components are wrong. "Schaden" is used for damaged things, not for a person, banana is English, in German it's a "Banane", "kaputt" as well is used for things and not for persons. And German language, while it does concatenate e.g. two nouns or a verb and a noun, does not build such contraptions.
I have heard of an English myth saying that Germans concatenate words to never ending monsters, and "Mad" is a satirical magazine. Might it be that the word was deliberately built to serve exactly that myth :-) ?
How about "Eine Verkettung unglücklicher Umstände" (a concatenation of unfortunate circumstances) to describe the Situation ? Wouldn't be in the artist's sense, but proper German.
Edit: Since this causes so much grief, rage and angst i add that in German officialese and insurance terms "Schaden" is used for persons as well. But in every day use and anyway in other contexts including medical we would of course describe a person as being "verletzt" (wounded), not "beschädigt" (damaged). Thanks @Jan and @Patrick Schlüter.
It is a:
Like Win-win-Situation or Stop-and-go-Verkehr. Duden also has "Stop-and-Go-Verkehr", with CamelCase.
a_donda is certainly right: MAD is a satirical magazine and the scene is mocking the German habit of concatenating words.
However, the situation is an illustration of the saying "Ein Unglück kommt selten allein" ("It never rains but it pours"). In that sense there exists an adequate German phrase although it is not a single word.
And one thing is clear if there is a banana peel on the street: The clown unavoidably slips on it. Loose translation to German:
Sicher [=safe] rutscht der Clown auf der Bananenschale aus.
As you already said there is the word Pechvogel, an expression for a person who is always unlucky.
So ... why not call him a
Pechclown - a clown who is always unlucky
It is not a common word, but it follows the rules.
Despite from that I think the word
Schadenfreude
fits very well.
You can use hyphens to put together the nouns clown(Clown), banana(Banane), safe(Tresor) and accident(Unfall): "Clown-Bananen-Tresor-Unfall". Pretty much describes the whole situation imo.
Witnessing this situation, I would think:
Das ist ja mal ein echtes Klischee! - Which literally translates to cliché. ("wow, that is an actual cliché!")
One often adds "lebend" to Klischee (a living cliché), but in this situation it is obviously not appropriate. Although it might add another level of irony ...
To back my usage up, here is an article in the magazine "Brigitte" with the title "Ich bin ein lebendes Klischee" (which I haven't read, though) :)
