Origin and pronunciation of "verbugt"

Question

I recently saw this in an on-line forum about a computer game. It doesn't seem to appear in dictionaries, but I think the meaning is clear from the structure of the word and a bit of context; German is very helpful in this way. (The corrected original is "Der Pflanzenkübel Boden ist verbugt." I render this as "The planter soil is bugged.") I have two questions. First, since this seems to be partly from English, would you pronounce the "bug" part as in English or the way it's spelled in German? Maybe there is no "correct" or "incorrect" pronunciation. Second, it seems to have the form of a past participle. Does that mean there is an implied verb, perhaps verbugen? You can use "bug" as a verb in English with several meanings, but not related to computer programs. You can say "bugged" informally though, meaning "nonfunctional due to a bug". I gather German follows the same logic, except it uses the German past participle and throws in ver- for emphasis.

Answer 1

Der Pflanzenkübel Boden ist verbugt.

This German sentence has two errors. Let's correct them first:

If the last word of this sentence is written like this, it is pronounced [fɛɐ̯ˈbuːkt] which sounds similar like »fairbooged« and nobody would realize that is has to do with an error in a computer program. (There is the German noun »der Bug« which is the front part of a ship and is »the bow« in English.) In fact, with that spelling and pronunciation this word has no meaning at all and sticks out of the sentence shouting out loud, "I am an error".

But when you add a second g, than most readers (not all; only in the right context of computer games might it be all readers) will realize that it has to do with a bug, because the word »debuggen« with the past participle »debuggt« is already part of German vocabulary, but it exists there as a foreign word, which means the German pronunciation is as close to the English one as is possible for German native speakers. And once the reader realizes this relationship between »debuggt« and »verbuggt« then the word »verbuggt« sounds like »fairbuged«.

Second error: German has no connecting blank between terms that belong together. So the spelling »Pflanzenkübel Boden« is wrong. You either write it with a hyphen (»Pflanzenkübel-Boden«) or as a compound word (»Pflanzenkübelboden«). The latter is preferred in German:

Der Pflanzenkübelboden ist verbuggt.

There are also other possibilities (»Der Boden des Pflanzenkübels«, »Der Boden vom Pflanzenkübel«) which are correct too, but less preferred than compound nouns.

So, to answer your questions:

1. Your assumption about the English translation is wrong.

   • die Pflanze = the plant
   • der Kübel = the pot
   • der Boden = the bottom
   • der Pflanzenkübel = the plant pot
   • der Pflanzenkübelboden = the bottom of the plant pot

   Der Pflanzenkübelboden ist verbuggt.
   The bottom of the plant pot is bugged.

2. The word »verbuggt« is spelled with double g and pronounced [fɛɐ̯ˈbʌkt] which sounds similar to "fairbuged".

3. Yes, it is a past participle. The infinitive form is »verbuggen«. You will not find this word in any dictionary (even »debuggen« is missing in most dictionaries, but »der Debugger« exists in most of them). But not being present in dictionaries just means that the word is new. When the reader understands what the author meant, then everything is fine.

4. All words used in German sentences that derive from the English word bug only have a meaning related to an error in a computer program. No other meanings exist in a German context.

Answer 2

Well the origin is undoubtly the English word bug (as in computer bug). Very related is debuggen (to debug).

The word in all variants is pronounced like the English one. The main difference I see though is that I mainly write this with two g's (i.e. verbuggt), which seems to go along with debuggen (not debugen). Indeed, as a German native, seeing this with only one g I initially read it as Bug (the front of a ship). Since this word also does not appear in the Duden, I guess you can get away with both spellings, but my recommendation would be to write it with a double-g. As stated above, this is consistent with debuggen, comes closer to how Germans would write the word (except for the u which is pronounced the English way) and finally, does not potentially cause confusion with the Bug. Although it should be quite clear if it appears in the context of software.

I think verbuggen only appears in the participle form, unless you were throwing a rant like

Die verbuggen das doch mit Absicht! (They're coding bugs on purpose)

Answer 3

Your conclusions are correct - it is the German equivalent of the English 'bugged' and is derived from the English. The 'bug' part is also pronounced like the English 'bug' and it is similarily informal. It exists - to my knowledge and experience - mostly in this participle form. Other usages are at least uncommon. If you were to create a verb from it, yes, it would be 'verbugen' or given the pronounciation with a short vowel and the English origin, I'd rather spell it as 'verbuggen'.

It is found used usually in context like you describe indicating that some programme or some specific part of a programme has bugs. It doesn't mean necessarily that it is completely non-functional, but that there definitely are oddities which are not by design. It's hard to find sources for this; there exists an entry in dict.cc, which spells it 'verbuggt'.

Answer 4

When one language integrates words from another language strange things can happen. A native french speaker would have a hard time recognizing the german-pronounced pommes ("pommes frittes") or, even worse, a Viennese-pronounced lavuhr ("lavoir").

The same is true here: the german IT community adopted "bug" (the noun) and "buggy" and "[to be] bugged" (being ridden by bugs), but not the verb "to bug" and neither its inflections. German is, so to say, unaware of these being inflected versions of the same root and treats the inflections as different words.

The prefix "ver-" is actually several prefixes ("per-", "pre-", "pro-","for-" "fore-") rolled into one. This is why it has many different meanings (i.e. "vergeben" can mean "to give away" or "to forgive", "verschreiben" can be "to prescribe" when intransitive but "to make a typo/to misspell" when reflexive, etc.). One of the meanings is that of an application along with a negative connotation. I.e. "fahren" (to drive), but "verfahren" can mean to become lost while driving (reflexive - "sich verfahren"), but a situation can also be "verfahren" (meaning it is driven into a corner and now there is no easy way out). This is actually where "verdammt" and "verflucht" (both: "damned") or "versalzen" (to apply too much salt) or "verführen" (to seduce) come from and how "verbugged" (this is how i would spell it) or "verbugt" (an alternate spelling, the word is too new to have a canonical german spelling) came to pass.

And because this is a new word it doesn't have to have all the possible inflections either. You are right, it looks like a Partizip Perfekt, but the respective Verb does not necessarily be in use - right now, it is not as far as I can tell. It might become being used or not.

A last remark about:

Der Pflanzenkübel Boden ist verbugt.

"Pflanzenkübel Boden" is a common error especially younger people are prone to. I suppose this is because of their increased exposition to English, where compounds are indeed written in this way. Correct German would be "Pflanzenkübelboden", more details here.

Answer 5

Yes, this seems to be a derivation from Bug [bak], even though the spelling lets me first think of Bug [buːk]. It means full of Bugs. A close analogue would be the word verlaust.

Of course if this refers to soil and not a computer program, then the author may have for some reason just derived this directly from the English noun bug in a sense that the German loan word does not have.

The derivation of verbugt (verbuggt? verbugged?) from the noun Bug is possible without a verb ”buggen”. Whether or not that means that verbuggen should also exist depends on whether or not that would be a useful concept.

• The word verlaust is more frequent than verlausen. A verb lausen exists but means rather the opposite.
• We have vermint as the past participle of verminen, straight from Mine.

Answer 6

would you pronounce the "bug" part as in English ...

Exclusively, yes. Well, nearly so, except that widespread Auslautverhärtung tends to render bug effectively with /k/. Backstein and Bug + Stein may sound the same (hypothetically a microchip: "Stein", that has a bug). The voice-feature is underspecified, which also means that verbaggen "verpacken" in a kind of Hessian dialect is not unheared of.

The underlying English representation should theoretically surface when another syllable follows (eg. *sieg- vb. /sign sigte/ beside n. /sik/). Otherwise we speak of code-switching to English, higher than High German, or we have to consolidate ongoing language changes. The fact that verbug-t present with a devoiced /k/ indicates at least for me that it is ossified. Alternatively, voicing is underspecified.

For the spelling see also Mus, Muse, "mousse" with one ‹s›, Mostrich with one ‹s›, Magazin, with one ‹g›, but Bagger with two, in which case baggern not * "bagt" would be the correct verb. Inasmuch as obsolete bagger "mud" is reported as the root, see mug / muck for a similar problem. Because of various historically changes, there seems to be no comparable wordstem in the inherited German vocabulary. All nominally short vowels would immediately condition changes in the vowel, departing in several dialects at least since Middle High German. That's why En. dog must correspond to Töhle, formerly tō, later Zohe, cp. Zofe (i.e. bitch); Dogge is a loanword, which does not participate in word formation and is obligated to carry an excrescent vowel. If it did, we'd probably see Dock-, cp. docked ears, lengthened grade dogged.

Nobody understands that. Feel free to make matters even worse by making up your own.

Does that mean there is an implied verb, perhaps verbugen?

Es mag sein dass es das gibt, es gibt aber keine verbindliche Richtlinie für Worthaftigkeit. Hohdeutsch spielt hier nur eine untergeordnete Rolle, da Anglizismen per Definition als Fremdworte betrachtet werden, da diese ganz genau die glorifizierte Rheinheit des Wortschatzes trüben. Das ist natürlich hinzunehmen, wenn solcherlei Worte in der bodenständigen Umgangssprache aufgenommen werden.

Die schwache Beugung wäre generell richtig, aber fraglich bleibt, ob aus einem passivischen Partizip einfach ein aktives Verb werden kann, ohne den Sinn zu entstellen. Denn Fehler wie Software-bugs sind naturgemäß unbeabsichtigt. Ansonsten spricht man eher von einem Häck, Hexenwerk, oder recht deutlich von absehbarem Verkacken (der Fäkalsprache abgeneigte vergleichen hier bitte Griechisch kako- "schlecht"; anderenfalls sei auf Türkisch bok verwiesen).

Das mag zwiespältig sein. Einerseits drückt verpesten ja fast dasselbe aus, so dass eine Analoge Bildung denkbar ist.

Andererseits gibt es z.B. defekte Verben wie vertrakt, an denen der Wortstamm nicht erkennbar ist, sodass eine Rückbildung bei strenger Betrachtung im Zweifelsfall falsch wäre (vgl. Vertrag), insofern der ursprünglichere Wortstamm andernorts noch geläufig ist und höher bewertet werden mag als sogenanntes Denglisch. Das ist eine Stilfrage, die mithin abhängig vom Ansprechpartner wäre. Wie oben bereits angedeutet, steht dabei mehr in Frage als reine Englischkenntniss. Dies hat wiederum mit Prestige zu tun. Der Duden führt soweit kein verbugt.

Richtiger ist verbocken im gängigen Jargon, insofern die Frage von Informatik handelt.

Siehe dazu auch Bock, bzw. Bockkäfer im Sinne der der deutschen Sprache kaum mehr geläufige Entsprechung zum englischen bug, wobei Käfer wie älteres Englisch chafer wohl als Schädling steht, vgl. [[cockchafer]] (bekannt für Fressschäden) sowie das Bezugswort wohl eigentlich als Buche, quasi Holz zu verstehen sein dürfte (vgl. Buch, book). Das ist weitgehend ungewiss, zumal das Buch mithin die Bibel bezeichnet. Mit einem Sandbuggy oder der Brotbüchse hat das augenscheinlich nicht viel zu tun, weil ein Zusammenhang zwischen Buche und Buchsbaum in der modefnen Sprachwissenschaft unbekannt ist. Siehe aber Boxklee, das ist sicher vom Ziegenbock (En. buck).

Sowieso heißt es i. bockig sein auch störrisch sein, einen Bock haben, sozusagen ein Holzkopf sein, ii. sprichwörtlich Boxhorn, welches jemanden zu stören geeignet war, wenngleich dessen sagenumwobene Herkunft umstritten ist, iii. Teufelsdarstellungen werden gern mit den Zügen eines Geisbocks versehen, iv. boh gilt den Slaven in Böhmen wiederum als nichts weniger als der Herrgott, der vor der Christianisierung aber verteufelt worden sein dürfte (von welcher Seite auch immer), v. ein Prellbock etwa ein tatsächliches Hindernis darstellt, wiederum zumeist aus Holz, sowie bestimmte Module den Hutschiene. in Schaltkonsolen feste als Böcke aufgesetzt werden, wirklich bombenfest vi. ein Buckel wird zuweilen als verhärtete Wucherung versinnbildlich, vii. ein Flitzebogen sollte jedenfalls aus widerstandsfähigem Material bestehen. ermutlich gehört herusbuxieren als unsanfte Art der Personenbeforderung, bzw. buxen (statt boxen) auch dazu, wie auch das über Roma-Sprachen eingetragene null Bock haben (wohl zu Indisch "Hunger") vgl. dementsprechend sterben, to starve, wie darben, ferner dürfen (also doch Bock haben). Es ist Hasenjagdsaison, doch ich habe keinen Bock. Der Bock trägt die Bewaffnung schließlich auf dem Kopf.

Wer etwas verbockt, trifft also am Ziel vorbei, oder gar nicht. Muss man sich vorstellen wie beim Fußball, wenn alle Umstehenden es wieder mal besser gekonnt hätte.