Mirror fencing
Under sham refers to an often exaggerated behavior to deceive others. A mirror fencer is therefore a blender , someone who pretends or fakes something .
Emergence
Originally from the exercise of fencing to joke or to exercise the term was derived, but in reality the term for an action that seems useful or important only in appearance, usually with the intention of theatrical pretense of usefulness or relevance executed . In the past, “mirror fencing”, which is now rather unusual, was used. In Adelung's grammatical-critical dictionary of the High German dialect from 1801, it says about the origin of the term "It therefore seems either to denote fencing with its image in the mirror, or to stand for game fencing, game fight ..."
According to Duden, the etymological origin is not certain. It is proven in the 16th century. and means either a mock fight with imaginary opponents or a fencing match in front of the mirror for training purposes.
Many animals cannot see themselves in the mirror, which is why they fight their own reflection as mirror fencers.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Knaur: The German Dictionary. Lexographic Institute Munich, 1985, p. 900.
- ↑ redensarten-index.de
- ↑ Spiegelfechterei. In: JG Krünitz (Hrsg.): Oeconomischen Encyclopädie ( kruenitz1.uni-trier.de ).
- ↑ Spiegelfechten, das. In: Adelung: Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect. Volume 4: Seb-Z. Breitkopf and Härtel, Leipzig 1801, p. 193 ( zeno.org ).
- ↑ Mirror fencing. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 16 : Sea life – speaking - (X, 1st section). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1905, Sp. 2245-2248 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).
- ↑ Duden. Volume 7, Mannheim 1963, ISBN 3-411-00907-1 , p. 659.
- ↑ Joël Roerig: Shadow boxing by birds - a literature study and new data from southern Africa . In: Ornithological Observations. ISSN 2219-0341 . Volume 4, June 4, 2013, pp. 39-68.