Is there a name for this specific concept? Where somebody invents something (to do them good) but then that thing turns around and backfires on them?

  • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Indeed - for OP’s purposes, I came up with this (but I don’t speak German, so it may make no sense at all): Erfindungselbstfehlzündung

    Google seems to like it well enough!

    Or better, Erfindungdererfinderselbstfehlzündung:

      • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Well, not with that attitude… ;-)

        Nah, fair enough - as I said, I can’t speak German, so was just mucking about trying to get something that might be plausible. Thanks for clarifying.

    • elvith@feddit.de
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      6 months ago

      The first one kinda works, but I think it’d be more clear, when used without “selbst”/self, as this would be read to reference the invention instead of the inventor.

      On the other hand, that then feels like “yeah, it didn’t work. The invention misfired and is crap”. Maybe “Erfindungserschafferzerstörer”? (Invention’s creator destructor) but that sounds off, too.

      There’s not really a word that I can come up with that really conveys this meaning. There’s a german saying “wer Andern eine Grube gräbt, fällt selbst hinein” (he, who digs a hole for others, will fall into it by itself). Then there’s the humorous “Rohrkrepierer” (along the lines of “died in the barrel”) which basically means something like “dead on arrival” / that went wrong and didn’t work. So it’d be probably something that references one of those, which would make it work culturally?