German word linked to Schadenfreude

[david niven]

I've read of [and irritatingly forgotten] a German word that roughly means 'disappointed at not getting schadenfreude'. For example, you watch a man wobbling at the top of a ladder. If he falls of and hurts himself [and you find it funny] you are having schadenfreude. But if he doesn't fall off and you are disappointed then you are having X [this other word]. I've looked on the internet, tried to translate it with Bable and asked German colleges, all to no avail. Any ideas anyone?

[Quizmonster]

How about Schadengram? I'm not suggesting any German would recognise the word, but I've created it on logical principles. 'Schadenfreude' means, in effect, 'shameful joy', so perhaps the other side of the coin is 'shameful grief'...ie Schadengram. That is, a grief that something bad has not happened, namely a shameful grief. You asked for ideas, so there's one.

[jno]

yes, there is a word... I've forgotten it too, though. It may be that it's not a real German word but a concocted one a bit like QM's - Germans can pile up words together till the cows come home - and that's why it doesn't show up in dictionaries.

[Quizmonster]

Erfolgtraurigkeit...click here and read Paragraph 3.

[Xollob]

"Freudlosigkeit" means "joylessness", so why not "Schadenfreudlosigkeit"?

On a pedantic note, compounds with "Erfolg-" tend to have a filler consonant "s", so "Erfolgstraurigkeit" (wenn �berhaupt!)

[Quizmonster]

I just copied the word from the web-page I provided the link to, X. I don't doubt it should have an 's', if you say so, but the resulting mis-spelling isn't really mine.

[Xollob]

QM, I never intended for a moment to imply you fathered this linguistic monster.

I think we can pin the blame on the linguists who programmed Babelfish. I think the author of the article you quote just entered his made-up "success sadness" in the translation machine and got "Erfolgtraurigkeit".
Garbage in; garbage out.

But Babelfish also falls down with "real" compounds: "success rate" comes out as "Erflograte", again without the filler "s".

[Quizmonster]

How about Gl�ckschmerz, then? That's pain/grief at (someone's) good fortune. Will that do?