bonze
The colloquial, derogatory term bonze is used as a foreign name for rich or influential people in society , business or politics , for example managing directors of large companies or party officials (see "party bosses") who have abused their power for personal gain and without appropriate Achievements have come to their post and prosperity .
Etymological origin
The term “bonze” originally referred to a Buddhist monk or priest and comes from Japanese . The borrowing sequence is French bonze < Portuguese bonzo <Japanese bōzu ( Japanese 坊 主 ) or bonsō ( 凡 僧 ). As bonzii it found in 1552 at de Francisco Xavier and as a bonze 1688 Gabriel de Magalhães' Nouvelle relation de la Chine .
Use as a swear word
Since around 1767 Christoph Martin Wieland has been scolded with the expression bigoted priests. This meaning can be found in Schiller's poem The Chariot of Venus in the verse You mummified in the ice of Boncentrene / Your heart's hot flames / Pharisees with the Janus expression! / Step closer - and fall silent.
According to Adolf Josef Storfer , the word acquired a secular meaning in German in the 19th century and was applied to statesmen, superiors and holders of high offices. Around 1890 it also became a derisive term within the labor movement for the social democratic holders of state or municipal offices as well as for union officials .
“This term is based, as it were, on the charge that the leaders are bourgeois, alienated from the masses and their revolutionary inclinations. The term was finally taken up by the opponents of socialism as a catchphrase against its leader "
In the same way of reviling corrupt party functionaries, it was also used by left-wing intellectuals, e.g. B. by Kurt Tucholsky 1923 in his poem To a Bonzen . Another example is the novel Farmers, Bonzen and Bombs by Hans Fallada . The term is still used today within the political left.
The use of the term culminated in Germany especially under the National Socialists , where the word can be found in almost all writings and in some cases it was also supplemented with an anti-Semitic component. The Weimar Republic as such was also referred to by them as a bonzocracy - “state of corruption”. After the synchronization in 1933, however, the use decreased.
At the height of the struggle of the anti-fascist action against the NSDAP in the BVG , the Communists referred to the National Socialists as bigwigs. Verbonzung of the party was also the accusation that the Strasser group brought forward as a justification for its split from the NSDAP in July 1930.
Today the word “fat cat” is often used for a person who has a lot of money and shows it, for example through status symbols such as fur, expensive cars or other luxury items. In modern youth language the expression is used as an insult for a person who prefers branded products and status symbols, likes to flaunt them and shows off valuables or money; it is meant to express that someone is considered "rich, spoiled and snooty".
In the punk scene , “bonze” is a derogatory swear word for those social classes that are above the “ middle class ”. The term is often used there for people who dress a little more finely and fashionably.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ James AH Murray : A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles . Volume 1, p. 988, Oxford 1888 (note: Japanese transcriptions modernized)
- ^ Hermann Paul, Werner Betz: German dictionary . 1966, p. 108
- ^ A b Adolf Storfer, Words and Their Fates, Berlin 1935, p. 72, ( online ), Reprint: Vorwerk, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-930916-37-1 .
- ↑ Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism . de Gruyter, 1998, ISBN 3-11-013379-2 , p. 126
- ^ Klaus Rainer Röhl: Proximity to the enemy: Communists and National Socialists in the Berlin BVG strike of 1932 . Campus, Frankfurt / Main 1994, ISBN 3-593-35038-6 , p. 90 .