#minimisation

[payetapolice]

"Pas la peine de prendre l’ascenseur alors, si elle est déjà morte!"

Après avoir entendu ma voisine se faire rouer de coups par son conjoint, nous décidons d'appeler la police à 19h. Vers 21h, une voiture de police ralentit dans la rue, puis continue sa route. Nous rappelons et apprenons que l'incident est clos car la patrouille a déclaré au poste central qu'il n'y avait rien à constater. Nous appelons une deuxième patrouille qui arrive vers 23h. Entre temps les cris et les coups se sont intensifiés.

Inquiète, je signale aux policiers que la victime est peut-être déjà morte. “Ah, ben pas la peine de prendre l'ascenseur alors!”, et ils s'esclaffent.

Les policiers, visiblement de bonne humeur, ne demanderont pas à voir la victime et expliqueront à son conjoint que leur dispute a embêté des voisines trop sensibles. Je la croise le lendemain, fuyante, couverte de bleus et de blessures. Ils déménagent dans les jours qui suivent. 

[othersideofthecouch]

Cognitive Distortion: Minimisation

[germanisnothard]

Minimisation

In German, Minimisation (or Verniedlichung) is very easy.

You just hang a "-chen"  or a "-lein" on a noun, change the article into neuter, perhaps change a vowel to an Umlaut and there you have it.

There are even some words, which are minimised by default like:

(das) Mädchen [the girl]

(das) Kaninchen [the rabbit]

(das) Ohrläppchen [the earlobe]

The nice thing is, that this works with basically EVERY noun, and it is used in quite some phrases.

For example, instead of "Hallo!" or "Guten Tag!" you just say "Tagchen!"

If some minor trouble came up you can say "Wir haben da ein kleines Problemchen!" [We've got a little problem there!']

Where „-chen“ and „-lein“ are mostly common in middle- or north-German, there is also the suffix „-el“ or „-li“ in south-Germany (like Bavaria and such) which are more common there, because of the different dialectic origin.

For example, instead of Mädchen they say Mädel or even Madel.

And if you want to get even deeper into Bavarian dialect there is also the suffix "-erl". So Mädchen can become Maderl, and it still has the same meaning.

Generally, minimisation is used to address small objects and cute/young people and/or animals. Sometimes as a valuation (like the problem-example above) or it is used to create pet names for loved ones.

A puppy would correctly been named Welpe, but most people will refer to it as Hündchen (minimisation of Hund [dog]) when playing with it.

When you want to be sweet to your loved one, you can call them Schatz [darling], or, if you want to be extra sweet, call them Schätzchen!

If a young boy is named Hans, you can call him Hänschen (Or even Hänschen klein!).

The list could go on, if I should post more examples, let me know!

[zombiecooking]

Compiles from JavaScript to better JavaScript. Removes dead code and comments and optimizes and minimizes the rest.