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

[janice-lester.livejournal.com]

"kaputtreparieren", I love it. And I think I can remember it to use it again in the future! :-) (my bad high school German is rusting gradually away in the back of my mind. I only really have cause to use it when browsing vintage fountain pens on ebay.de)

And the other one, though less memorable (IMHO), is wonderful. I mean, repairing something to death is a common enough thing that we make jokes about it, but the fact that German has come up with a word for improvements that suck seems to suggest a sort of universal inevitability about it, as if it's only to be expected. A sort of standard bureaucratic function, perhaps.

You could try using ?format=light on a case-by-case basis? You might be able to get a scriptlet for it rather than having to type it. I have ones in my Safari bookmark bar for ?mode=reply and ?style=mine. Just a thought.

[ratcreature]

Unfortunately "format=light" also has the new comment pages. It's incomprehensible what's "light" about it, but they broke that too.