Scheinheilig
We psychologists are fascinated by words.
If you’ve followed my content for any length of time, you’ll know that I love words – particularly words that don’t have a direct English translation.
As words are a clue to our cognition – how we think – then it follows that having words that do not directly translate to another language implies that people speaking those languages might think differently.
It’s why I chose Firgun as my company name.
It’s a Hebrew word that means “the genuine, sincere and pure happiness for another person’s accomplishment or experience.”
We all know that feeling. That warm “ahh” when we witness a good deed being done.
Scheinheilig is in the same camp. (“shine hile ig”)
It’s a German word that describes something that appears to be pure or sincere but is actually fake or hypocritical.
It’s a veneer of sincerity. But we can feel that fakeness.
Something inside of us knows when something is off. Something feels iffy.
Like when you receive an AI-written DM.
Or an email that feels like it was translated perhaps from Malay to Urdu to English, and loses something in its comprehension – even though the words might seem pretty accurate.
In this age of Deepseek, fake news and inhuman cold outreach DMs, it feels like Scheinheilig should be a part of the English dictionary too.
What do you think?
