Talk:Fingerspitzengefühl

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Is Fingerspitzengefühl an English word at all? In German it certainly exists, but is not at all confined to a military context. It refers to something like having a good nose for something, instinctive feeling, being in touch. But does this warrant an article in English? Bessel Dekker (talk) 01:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It may be that it has become a "term of art" in English. There is no English word for the concept as it is used in discussions of the art of fighting wars. It is widely used in discussions of the what makes an extraordinary battlefield commander.

See footnote 39 at

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/PARAMETERS/96spring/echevarr.htm

for some history of the use of the term by the German military.

I've also seen British military discussions on-line but they seem to have been withdrawn from the WWW. P0M (talk) 06:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I've seen it used in Norwegian, but for some reason I've always heard it as "fingerspitzgefühl" (without the "en" part). But Google claims 581K hits for the "en" and only 10K hits for the version without the "en". --Alvestrand (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

There are two approaches. One is to have many fingers, one for each sensitive point on the battlefield. The other is to have only one finger but tremendous prestidigitation. It's like the difference between a parallel computer connection and a serial computer connection. Two wires can be as good as 36 if you move fast enough. ;-) P0M (talk) 15:59, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

While borrowing from another language usually involves more or less subtle shifts in meaning, in the present case I remain stubbornly unconvinced. A quick search seems to bear out this doubt: [1] or [2]. I would suggest it would be dangerous to extrapolate from a specialised context.

As for the form Fingerspitzgefühl without the -en-, my fairly comprehensive dictionary does not have it, and I suspect that this is a specific Norwegianism. Bessel Dekker (talk) 02:38, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure which part your are being unconvinced about, but have you checked out the carlisle.army.mil site linked above? You might also cross reference the term with the name "John Boyd" on the WWW, since many military strategists who write on the subject of the adaptation of one's actions to the actions of one's opponents frequently use this term. For what it is worth, the same general topic seems to be covered in the intersection between Zen Buddhism and the martial arts. The best account, although it is deep enough to require some background to really appreciate, is D.T. Suzuki's account of the strata of a mind, the non-locality of some strata of the mind, etc. that he gives in Fromm, Suzuki, and de Martino's, Zen Buddhism in Psychoanalysis."

It may indeed be that the original German term has a broad meaning that is not limited to military affairs, and even that the term was only used by a limited coterie of writers at some time in German military history. However, the term has escaped the German border and now seems to be in use as a "term of art" in English and perhaps in other languages. A similar thing happened with the ordinary French "avec" -- In Japan "an avec" refers to two people who are observedly traveling with each other. Sometimes one can observe an avec that is moving quite nicely together down the street even though they are separated by several meters. There evidently wasn't a good word for this "togetherness" in Japanese, so they took over the French word and made it a noun.

There are around 4000 "hits" on Google when the search for this term is linked to terms like "military," "battlefield," etc. Not all of them are in English, either. P0M (talk) 07:27, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

In German, the term "Fingerspitzengefühl" today is mostly used to describe skills and good intuition in social situations, or for example in connection with referees in sports or with public relations(especially in situations of failing PR, stating a lack of "Fingerspitzengefühl"). I (and hardly any other German, I suppose) did not even know that is was once connected to military commanders. 77.4.77.246 (talk) 11:56, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I've been working on a translation of Master Sun's Art of War and for that reason sent a copy to one of the authors who writes on the WWW and publishes books on military topics (he is particularly involved with air force matters), and he commented favorably on my incidental use of the term "Fingerspitzengefühl" in discussing implications of something said in that book. All that means to me is that there are some speakers of English who would have to invent a new term if they had not adopted this one.

All of the British and American use of this term may stem back to professional admiration of the abilities of General Rommel -- and their difficulty in understanding how he seemed to them to have a clear view of the battlefield while they were operating in a fog. Maybe they even picked up the German term from the entirely incidental use of the term (which might have been replaced with something like "just seems to have a feel for what is going on") and that gave them a convenient hook on which to hang a growing appreciation of something special going on. If somebody at that time had tried to use "intuition," it might have dampened enthusiasm for figuring Rommel's abilities out since another fixed idea that Americans have is that intuition is a woman's thing.

English is not alone in absorbing words from other languages -- and sometimes twisting things in the process. Japanese has adopted the French word "avec," not to just mean "with" but to speak of two people as a couple. "Yasuko and Kenji are an avec."

The ability of martial artists to be aware of things that others never notice (primarily on the level of an individual moving through a potentially deadly environment) has been the subject of teaching stories in Japan going back hundreds of years. But in Japan cultural and religious ideas (largely pertaining to Zen Buddhist idea about what mind is and how it works) support the idea that the martial artist has some source of information that goes outside of ordinary physical processes.

I wonder if there is a term in German that would be used to tag a complex form of information acquisition and processing that allows somebody like Rommel to get and/or retain pertinent information that nobody else seems to end up with, to draw valid conclusions from that seemingly miscellaneous collection, and then to act in creative ways that are frequently successful. P0M (talk) 15:29, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Only military?

I think in German the word is often used outside of military context. E.g. a certain kind of work requires Fingerspitzengefühl or you have to approach someone with Fingerspitzengefühl in order not to hurt his feelings. --Church of emacs (Talk) 09:40, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Certainly you are correct. But in English this word has taken on a second life, that of a technical term that is used by people interested in the capabilities of some military leaders.P0M (talk) 18:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Has it? While we have one source which uses it to describe a German general during WWII, its use is hardly well documented or unique in that context. On the other hand, sources like New York Times and Time Magazine use it in the traditional German meaning to describe American politicians... The military content should certainly be in the article, but giving the impression that it's the only usage in the English language is just misleading. Usrnme h8er (talk · contribs) 20:08, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I know I'm quite late, but I think I can answer Church of emacs's question. (I'm a native speaker of German, so please excuse my poor English.) In German the word Fingerspitzengefühl is not at all used in a military context. That is a meaning that speakers of English (as it seems mainly Americans) have given to this word. If you use it like that, you should consider it an English word.

In German, the word has two usages: First the metaphorical one that is described in the first paragraph of the article (and were the most important word is "tactfully"). Second, the literal meaning: A clockmaker e.g. needs Fingerspitzengefühl when he's manipulating all those tiny parts and putting them together. 217.235.235.63 (talk) 16:13, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

We use Fingerspitzengefühl in many situations. It is just a synonym expression for finesse, tact or awareness.

Maybe there's a much better explanation for its actual meaning: being blunt or - as so often perceived - to be straight forward or direct to a level of unpolite rudeness is very german alltogether. Hence (among us germans) these behavioural trades are just as normal as beer and punctuality. Exactly here comes the concept of Fingerspitzengefühl into the game, because even an agressive and warlike people have to take sometimes into consideration, that mourning, fragile or easy-excitable personae require that notion described with the compound noun above? Btw. Rommel wasn't known for his Fingerspitzengefühl amidst the Wehrmacht - he was a general who got himself in danger ever so often, thus the troops respected him for that presence on the frontline. Many even remembered, that he revolutionized the trench warfare tactics during WW1 and his approach - like the whole damned campaign - was everything than a display of Fingerspitzengefühl. If one would like a definition by the opposite, one might look into the behaviour of Wilhelm II. - a fool, who lacked every bit of it.--78.51.92.13 (talk) 15:08, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Isn't this a more common term?

Hmm, what distinguishes this occasional nonce word from http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fly_by_the_seat_of_one%27s_pants ? -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 07:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

They seem fairly different to me. Flying by the seat of one's pants has a connotation of risk and even foolhardiness that this term does not. Shmuelic (talk) 16:30, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Rehash of loanword

Since the latest update of the discussion was in 2009, and didn't provide a conclusion, I'd like to reopen the discussion on whether this is a loanword to English. I've served in the military, have friends that have served in various fields in the military, and none have heard of this word being used in the American military besides talking about either of the World Wars. I don't know about the British military, however. If it is used by the British, perhaps changing the sentence to it being a loanword into British English (or however it is termed) to differentiate from American English. Edited to add: The Wiktionary entry uses german articles (die, der, etc) to define it, but none in English. Leobold111 (talk) 14:28, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Multiple Intelligences

Why is the multiple intelligences part of Rommel's story included, it seems tangential and somewhat speculative. Also the wording of "related to personal possession of multiple intelligences" seems odd because the theory of personal intelligences is that everyone possesses all modalities of intelligence in differing strengths. Shmuelic (talk) 16:45, 30 November 2018 (UTC)