TIL There's A German Word For How It Feels When You're Champagne Drunk

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By  Allison Shoemaker

Sektlaune means, depending on the German-English dictionary you consult, one of the following:

  • To be propelled into doing under the influence of champagne
  • Champagne flush
  • Champagne mood, crazy mood
  • Sparkling mood, adventurous mood, tending to become involved in risky activities
  • This dictionary helpfully uses the word in a sentence: Diese Entscheidung ist nicht aus einer Sektlaune entstanden, or This decision did not come from a sparkling mood.

    • Basically, it means both "the giggly giddy mood you're in when you drink champagne," and "champagne face." It is my new favorite word. It makes me want to drink some champagne right now so I can have champagne face, in a champagne mood, and make some champagne decisions.

    Before we go to the source of this delicious discovery, a few other great German words, beyond zeitgeist, doppelgänger, schadenfreude, and brotzeitteller ("bread time"). These were all new to me, courtesy of FluentU:

    • Weltschmerz, or world pain, meaning feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders. Brooding superheroes all have weltschmerz.
    • Fremdscham, "stranger shame." Secondhand-cringe, basically.
    • Treppenwitz, when you come up with a snappy retort hours or days after the fact. We at The Takeout experience treppenwitz every we miss a great pun.
    • Here's my favorite. Backpfeifengesicht translates to face that should get a slap that whistles across the cheek." This is a word for someone who has a really punchable face.

The source

Lisa Schönhaar of Business Insider Deutschland! You made my day. In the lede of this brief, interesting piece about why sparkling wine can make you feel more drunk than plain ol' regular wine, Schönhaar briefly mentions that magnificent word. For that, I salute her, because it is a gem.

By the way, the answer is that carbon dioxide "increases the permeability of your biomembranes," stimulating circulation. And that means more alcohol can wind up in your bloodstream.

Science! Language! Wine! This is all my favorite things. Happy Thursday.

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