# Searching for a German Word **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 19, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-for-a-german-word/182826 "2003-06-19T00:47:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![meanyblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8edcca/32.png) [@meanyblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meanyblue)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-for-a-german-word/182826/1 "2003-06-19T00:47:00Z")
I am unable to recall a german word I ran across a few years back. The word apparently has no english equivalent. The phenomena the word describes becoming aware of something for the first time, then noticing the “something” numerous times. Example, looking up a new word in the dictionary, then seeing it repeatedly over the next few weeks. Another example would be, if a friend gets a new car, you become aware how “common” that car is. I’m sure it is a “psyche” word…but NOT A german equivalent of deja vu. I’ve lurked on the boards for some time now, and always enjoy it. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-for-a-german-word/182826/2 "2003-06-19T01:43:45Z")
I think you may have two separate words in mind. The first may be the German word _Gestalt_, meaning “pattern.” A Gestalt experience is one in which one first recognizes a pattern that had previously existed, but had not been noticed by the observer. (Phenomenologists, of course, will simply reply that the observer is imposing an order on the observed, but that is a whole separate discussion.) The phenomenon of suddenly encountering some common event and, having once encountered it, beginning to encounter it _everywhere_ is usually called “synchronicity.” It is a neologism from Greek, meaning “same time” and is not German, _per se_, although Carl Jung expounded upon it in his ponderings. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-for-a-german-word/182826/3 "2003-06-19T05:45:50Z")
I think **tomndebb** is referring more to the term “Gestalt psychology” listed in the American Heritage dictionary: “a psychological school or doctrine holding that psychological phenomena are irreducible gestalts.” I thought that _Gestalt_ refers to something whose meaning is greater (or different than) the sum of its parts. The same dictionary defines “Gestalt” as “a physical, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from its parts.” In that sense, The Beatles were a _Gestalt_, since the band was quite different from (if not universally reckoned to be, always and in all ways, better than) the ensuing solo careers of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. (And this applies to their personnae, their celebrity, their on-stage presence, and, of course, their music.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-for-a-german-word/182826/4 "2003-06-19T06:04:40Z")
…Having said that, it looks like “synchronicity” is probably it. From the editorial preface to Carl Jung’s **Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle** (Bollingen, 1973): Jung first used the term in 1930, while attempting “to explain the _modus operandi_ of the _I Ching_…”. He later expressed it as “’…a peculiar principle active in the world so that things happen together somehow and behave as if they were the same, and yet for us they are not.’” The example cited from Jung’s youth is, that he saw a seemingly solid wooden table suddenly split; followed soon after by his seeing an apparently strong steel knife breaking apart, “for no apparent reason”. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-for-a-german-word/182826/5 "2003-06-19T17:29:43Z")
I don’t know what the word is, but none of the descriptions here seem to fit. I experienced the example you are talking about. My wife and I decided to buy a new Camry a few years ago, and decided on a gold color. After we got it home, my wife started to complain because everywhere she went she noticed gold-colored Camrys, and she felt ours was too common. Neither of us had taken any note of gold Camrys prior to buying the car, though you _know_ those cars were out there. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-for-a-german-word/182826/6 "2003-06-19T20:37:33Z")
[out on a limb] You wouldn’t be speaking of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, would you? [/out on a limb] It would take too long to explain. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![meanyblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8edcca/32.png) [@meanyblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meanyblue)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-for-a-german-word/182826/7 "2003-06-19T22:50:34Z")
Thanks for the input. As I recall, the magazine article was referring to German words for which there is no English equivalent such as “happy at the misfortune of others”, etc. Synchronicity seems a similar phenomena, but really not the word…unless as stated, I’m confusing two words. Baader-Meinhof phenomenon? Very good, perhaps that’s it. Certainly looks like it, perhaps I’ve fixated on a it being a word not phrase, but my memory was of “the no english equivalent” bit. Thanks again.