Obscure Or Obvious?

[debka_notion]

Do you know what a doppelganger is? More accurately, how troubled should I be that many of my rabbinical school classmates a. don't know what a doppelganger is, and b. try to spell it as two words?

Just a thought from the insane place in my mind that is me trying to avoid exams...

Comments

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

Oy. Yes, of course I know what a doppelgänger is. And oy.

Good luck on exams!

(FYI, if you're in a font or system in which it's unwieldy to include the umlaut, the convention is to replace |ä| with |ae|, not just |a|, so: doppelgaenger. Oh, look, Wikipedia says that your spelling is also an acceptable alternative in English. OK.)

[belu.livejournal.com]

I thought everybody knows what a doppelgänger is.

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

I definitely know what one is. I know what considerably more obscure fantastic creatures are as well, but I thought that one was pretty well-known.

(And it's pretty clearly a German word. When in doubt, assume that a German noun is one word. I thought that was fairly well-known, too, if only as something to mock the Germans about.)

[cynara-linnaea.livejournal.com]

Please tell me you are talking about the Machon Schechter students, who at least have the excuse of not speaking a Germanic native tongue. If not, I might have to give up on our Movement now.

On another note, fiddledragon, your Shadowchild icon seems very apropos.

[gimmelgirl.livejournal.com]

You forgot the accent over the a. And now I'm not sure I know how to do it on my computer.
:goes to figure out how to add accents on her computer:

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

I tend to leave this one alone. "Doppelgänger" means a ghostly projection of oneself in European mythology, but in common English parlance it's just a word for someone who uncannily resembles someone else.

The annoying bit is that I've so far only seen one "celebrity doppelgänger" posting in which the resemblance really is that good.

[wilperegrine.livejournal.com]

Man, those rab students need to get with the zeitgeist.

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

I thought it a pretty commonly known concept. I mean, I don't know the original German meaning, the legend or fairy tale or whatever, but in its modern English meaning, I thought it a relatively common word.

Also, just to be snarky, let me point out that there are no ümläuts in English. No accent marks of any kind. Granted, admittedly, I am a stickler for correct romanization of Japanese (ningyo にんぎょ and ningyô　にんぎょう are different words with different meanings). But when it comes to words fully absorbed into the English language, I don't think there need to be diacritics. If you wouldn't italicize it as a foreign word, then it doesn't get diacritics IMHO.