words English is missing:

[ratcreature]

Verschlimmbesserung, i.e. a portmanteau of Verbesserung (improvement) and Verschlimmerung (deterioration/worsening), to describe intended improvements or upgrades that end up making everything worse. Also used as a verb ("verschlimmbessern"), cousin to the equally useful "kaputtreparieren" (repair/tinker with a thing to the point that it becomes broken). Not entirely unrelated to this language observation, I'm still trying to decide whether I should opt to display everything on LJ in my style (which I find confusing, because I'm used to comms and journals all having their layout), or deal with the new comment pages on comms that have not disabled them, which unfortunately includes a number of fest comms I'd been browsing.

Comments

[mecurtin]

I'm trying to grasp the precise distinction between verschlimmbessern and kaputtreparieren -- both of which are absolutely critical terms for software and website developers, of course. I guess it's:

verschlimmbessern: it wasn't broken, we upgraded, we made it less useful (though not necessarily broken)

kaputtreparieren: we were fixing or tinkering with things everyone agreed needed to be fixed, but now it's completely broken

And what's the noun form for kaputtreparieren?

[ratcreature]

Yes, that's essentially it. I think kaputtreparieren describes more of process, which also means that there isn't really a noun that is in use, aside from how you can amost always make a verb a noun in German to describe activity, i.e. "das Kaputtreparieren". I think it has the connotation of perfectionism gone wrong or too far, when someone fiddles and fiddles with something and eventually the thing just can't take the modifications any more.