2006 Word of the Year: Weltschmerz

Here's the link to Wikipedia's excellent summary of the word's use: http://www.answers.com/topic/weltschmerz

A couple of key points about it, and how it qualifies, among all the words of the English language, to be the "Word of the Year":

First, it is a compound word coined from the combination of the German words for "World" and "pain", and it arises from the Romantic movement and is central to the Romantic philosophy (and Wikipedia also mentions it with regard to the modern "goth subculture").

It is credited to Jean Paul Richter (see http://www.answers.com/topic/jean-paul for an assessment of his work, also quite relevant, but here's a great quote from him: "The child is not to be educated for the present, but for the remote future, and often in opposition to the immediate future.") The Wikipedia entry on Weltschmerz includes this amazing phrase: it "denotes the kind of feeling experienced by someone who understands that the physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind".

I think this captures my 2006 political mindset, and that of many others as well.If we gave this year's version of the American electorate a single identity and a single purpose, it attempted to throw the bums out for their failure to create a physical reality in Iraq which matched up with their imagined one.

The emotional feeling, described as "sentimental pessimism", may be a perennial danger, but there are certain times when the pain becomes more acute, and most of this year was one of those times.

And, coincidentally, it was the word misspelled by Finola Hackett, the runner-up in this year's National Spelling Bee.