"Besserwissrisch"

The word came up today, via a comment on one of my blogs from seven years ago. 

It's a German word....besserwissrisch....typically means a 'know-it-all' or an individual who intends to correct you on a continual basis (a habit of some Germans, I will admit).

Around the US, you might bump into some folks act besserwissrisch on occasion.  I noted in my youth on the farm, when certain folks would show up and let you know that you weren't on the right-track or doing it the proper way.

In Germany, one might go and take the view that you bump into someone like this every single day, and that a quarter of all Germans have this character-trait.

Among intellectual Germans.....it's probably higher than a quarter of the population.  Sadly, an American in the middle of some brief conversation will typically take this advice-offered moment of the German intellectual.....as a besserwissrisch moment, and come away more negative than positive.

Getting a German to admit that they might have an habitual character trait like besserwissrisch?  You'd have to go off to some rehab clinic or 'Kur' for treatment and they'd argue to the end that they were still correct about their opinion. 

One of my routine German TV shows revolves around a political round-table, and you can see besserwissrisch being argued down to the ninth-degree, and the crowd applauding over the 'winner' in the end (Hart Aber Fair is the show).

The odd thing I see at work presently with the besserwissrisch crowd in Germany, is that they've all become very much pro-EU, and in some ways.....draining themselves of attachment to Germany itself.  Yet at the EU level, they are now confronted by various cultures from around Europe (like Hungary, Poland, and the UK).....which just aren't of the same belief system or stance.  Just to argue on immigration or migration, the besserwissrisch crowd is facing a pretty tough time now.

Inherent problems with the besserwissrisch crowd?  Well....they hate to admit that Bill Gates was correct in suggesting a massive flow of IT engineers required in Germany in the 1990s.  They also hate to admit that Goggle was a decade ahead of Germans on the process of searching.  Facebook?  The German concept or alternate to Facebook was basically two years late, and never took off.  There are hundreds of occurrences that make the besserwissrisch crowd sit around at night in a fit of frustration. Hillary Clinton?  She was the answer for the besserwissrisch crowd.  Uncontrolled immigration was the original answer for the besserwissrisch crowd, then they found some way of getting wiser, and then realizing that maybe they'd screwed up a bit.

The thing is....besserwissrisch is not going away.  The best that you can do with confronting a besserwissrisch guy or gal....is just to give them a hug, and wish them the best in the world....then hand them a full liter of German beer.   With enough alcohol.....they will eventually shut up.