Erfolgserlebnis

I'll get to the title of this post in a few paragraphs. I'm assuming that, for non-German speakers, it's one of those German words that looks both indecipherable and unpronounceable.

Last week I went to the dentist for the first time here in Flein. True to compound word form, the German word is Zahnarzt (tooth doctor). You can also visit an eye doctor (Augenarzt), skin doctor (Hautarzt), women's doctor (Frauenarzt), nerve doctor (Nervenarzt), and so on. Quite practical. The Latin terms are also listed in the dictionary, as in Ophthalmologe, Dermatologe, Gynäkologe, Neurologe, but the more descriptive names tend to be what people say. In fact, the only medical specialty that I recall hearing in the Latin form with any regularity is Urologe (what would the compound word for that be anyway?). The dictionary mentions the word Dentist (or Dentistin, if she's female), but I've never heard anyone say that.

We found this particular dentist about three weeks ago when Miriam broke a tooth out while eating a snack at school. She was chewing on a Mamba (perhaps the stickiest, hardest candy there is), and off cracked a molar, followed by a gush of blood. She was alarmed, especially since she'd been unaware that the tooth was loose. When I came to her classroom to pick her up, I was alarmed, too, by the white flecks I saw on the napkin holding the tooth. We left the school, and I called the two new friends whose cell numbers are stored in my phone. One of the recommendations was indeed a short walk from the school, but the office was closed. The other was back in Flein, and the receptionist offered an immediate appointment.

Perhaps it's a symptom of the craziness of the move, but I wasn't clear if Miriam had lost a molar before or if this was the first one. I assumed it was a baby tooth, but I wanted to be sure nothing untoward had happened. We met a friendly dentist (Dentistin) named Dr. Jasmin Schallock, who speaks superfast German and who spoke fluent English with Miriam. It was indeed a Milchzahn (milk tooth), and all was well. Dr. Schallock pointed out four other loose molars. Miriam lost another one last week and was pretty mellow about the experience, blood and all.

My own dental appointment was routine. Here's the routine: Wow, you have really good teeth. (To the hygenist) Take a look at these teeth. You don't see that every day. A tiny bit of gum recession here, a surface filling there, nice bite (did you have orthodontia?). You do have some calculus (Zahnstein--tooth stone) on the front lower teeth, but otherwise, I can see we're not going to make any money on your mouth! It's a nice routine. Dr. Schallock was even complimentary of my bite guard, which was fabricated for me in Salt Lake City. I've ground my teeth (especially at night) for a long time, and I finally went for a bite guard in the fall of 2004. In the early months after my son died, I would wake up to find that I'd loosened a few teeth in the night. The bite guard still fits tight and looks "pretty good" (I think that's a relative perception because the plastic has yellowed, and I think the thing looks pretty icky). Gouges into the plastic from my lower teeth attest to the fact that my grinding habit continues.

I attribute my good teeth mostly to the fluoridated water I drank as a child in the 1960s and 1970s in Ohio. It's a perception fostered by my parents, both of whom have significantly more difficulty with tooth decay and breakage. A little research shows me that the debate on the usefulness and safety of water fluoridation and fluoride supplements continues. Interestingly, Utah was introducing water fluoridation, county-wise, when we moved there in 2003. Miriam and Simon drank fluoridated water in Ann Arbor, and both had sturdy teeth.

Aside from brushing (I'm a twice a day brusher: very first thing in the morning or I feel like I'm going to die of morning mouth and again at bedtime), I have become a pretty proficient flosser. I did not grow up using dental floss, but I've managed to instill the practice in my forties. A particularly painful tooth cleaning in Salt Lake City seems to have been the impetus I needed to take better care of my own gums. When Dr. Schallock asked while admiring my gums if I use Zahnseide (tooth silk), I was happy to say, Ja!

And that brings me to the word Erfolgserlebnis. I felt good about myself while riding my bike home from the dentist. I felt good about being from the USA, where we seem to know how to take care of teeth. Moving to a new town, especially in a different country, inevitably brings moments of frustration, feelings of not belonging, and plenty of time feeling just plain lost. My forty-five minutes in the dentist's chair yielded a solid bit of positivity, an Erfolgserlebnis (literally, success-experience).

So much for the meaning of the word. But how do you pronounce it? The biggest secret to any German word is determining where the syllables and word parts divide. In this case: Er-folg-s-er-leb-nis (air-folks-air-layb-niss). Erfolg=success. Erlebnis=experience. The "s" in the middle is a genetive (possessive) sort of connector, imparting the sense of "experience of success." Each word part happens to begin with the prefix "er-" (whose meaning is abstract and difficult to define); folg is from folgen=follow; lebnis is a noun derived from leben (to live). For a German speaker, grouping words into their components is a matter of course. It helps me a lot to locate suffixes, prefixes, and word roots (i.e., what's the underlying verb). If I can do that successfully, I can see the word for its parts. Then, mercifully, German pronunciation follows a rigid and easily learned set of phonetic rules.

I was hoping to offer a gender rule here for all nouns ending in the -nis suffix. It's "das Erlebnis" (so it's also "das Erfolgserlebnis"). However, I just found a listing of "die Kenntnis" (from the verb kennen) at BEOLINGUS (the online dictionary I usually consult). So, I'm stumped. This sort of suffix can almost always be counted on for gender consistency (like -chen is always "das," and -ung is always "die"). Does anyone out there know anything? Maybe it's that "t" on the end of the verb stem "kenn" in Kenntnis. Hmm. (By the way, once you're on to the prefix/suffix and compound word situation, it becomes a whole lot easier to look at words that have four (or even more) consonants blithely in a row, as in "Kenntnis." No problem.)