To bark up the wrong tree
The phrase “to be on the wrong track ” describes a non-goal-oriented approach and implies the request to leave the wrong path. The word “Holzweg” stands for a path that was laid out in a forest to get wood, and not to connect two places. Today this is also known as the return route . The word “Holzweg” in this sense has been in use since the 13th century and its proverbial use has been documented since the 15th century.
The medieval poet Ulrich von Türheim still uses the term in the sense of an undeveloped path in his " Tristan " (verse 1393) , which was probably written before 1243 : " mit die rehten strâze und ganc die Holzwege towards " ("he avoided the developed / level Street and went over the wood paths ”).
In the didactic poem " Der Jüngling " (probably written in the second half of the 13th century) by the poet Konrad von Haslau , the wrong way stands for a path that is taken instead of the path of virtue (verse 1033ff.):
" That in itself betrayed Manger, / who got a wooden stick: / he thinks in the best; / then after that he vindt ronen and este, / those of the boumen sint gerêret; / swelch tumber there not against kêret, / at that I speak wol in sînen hulden, / who muoz vil unrede tolerate ”(“ some people were wrong in this / by getting on the wrong track: / he thought it was the best [way]; / but then he finds fallen trunks and branches / those of the trees have fallen; / he who is so foolish and does not turn back / I say that in his own sense [or: for his own good], / he has to endure bad words ”).
In a moral sermon by the German preacher Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg (1445–1510) from 1495, the wrong path is a wrong or astray that leads away from God: “ You don't find one among a thousand who pursues the right path, but they walk follow all the wrong path and hurry hard until they come to the bright one ”(“ Among a thousand [people] you cannot find one who strives for the right path [here probably in the sense of a godly, Christian life], but they all follow the wrong path and hurry up until they arrive in hell ”).
In his collection of proverbs and in his “table speeches”, Martin Luther also used this phrase several times.
The meaning of the wrong way is taken up in a proverb from East Prussia : “ The one goes the Holtweg, the other the Soltweg ” (“The one goes the wrong way, the other the Salzweg”). Here the wooden path leading to nowhere is compared to the salt road , because in the times of the Hanseatic League a lot of money was made with the salt trade.
The term was used by the philosopher Martin Heidegger as the title of his well-known work Holzwege .
swell
- ↑ a b Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: German dictionary , article Holzweg
- ↑ Friedrich Kluge : Article: Holzweg , in: ders., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, edited by Elmar Seebold, 23rd edition, de Gruyter: Berlin, New York, 1995, ISBN 3-11-012922-1
- ↑ Ulrich von Türheim, Tristan continuation , in: Gottfried von Straßburg, works. From the best [sic!] Manuscripts with introduction and dictionary edited by Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen, Volume 1, Breslau 1823, pp. 269–321
- ↑ Examples in: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: German Dictionary , Article Holzweg
literature
- Duden : idioms and proverbial idioms , 1992, p. 348
- Lutz Röhrich : Article: Holzweg , in: ders., Lexicon of the proverbial sayings, Volume 2, Freiburg, Basel, Vienna 1999
