Dienstag, 14. Juli 2009

What's in a name - blogwart

A Blockwart was the National Socialist party snitch assigned to monitor the comings and goings of the people in his or her apartment house. This included reporting "Judenfreunde" (Jew-lovers) to the authorities and otherwise keeping the living "block" free of non-Aryans. In the GDR, a comparable function was in effect - officially called "Abschnittsbevollmächtigter" or "district authority" but informally known as blockwart, in referance to the odious Nazi police state abetters.

So blogwart will ironically evoke a blog that is dangerously prying to German readers, while everyone else may think of Harry Potter's alma mater Hogwarts. A possibly intriguing semantic conflation - surveillance, betrayal, sorcery, skills, codes of conduct, individualism vs. collective...all important aspects of modern life and depending on their combination - useful or dangerous for humanity.