# Morbid curiosity



## Mudblood

Is there a German word or phrase for "morbid curiosity", as in, the irresistible urge to look at something that's disgusting or macabre? It's the same kind of thing when you can't look away from a train wreck. In some parts of the U.S., people call that "rubbernecking", but I think that's more specific than the term I'm looking for here. I'd only say "rubbernecking" when you're literally passing by something like a car accident and turn your head back to keep looking at it as you pass. But I'm looking for an expression that could be applied to any kind of scenario where you can't stop looking at something even though it grosses you out.

Danke!


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## bearded

Hello and welcome to this forum!

I would say _krankhafte Neugier._
I hope that native speakers will confirm whether this renders 'morbid curiosity' well.


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## Mudblood

Thanks for the welcome and the suggestion!



bearded man said:


> _krankhafte Neugier_



That seems to be a direct translation, right? Is that a commonly used expression in German or might there be something more idiomatic?


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## bearded

It is commonly used, as far as I know.  Maybe natives will suggest some more 'colloquial' expressions.


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## HilfswilligerGenosse

Gaffen. 

All the debates about this behaviour occur under the term _gaffen_. More specifically _Unfallgaffen_.


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## Mudblood

HilfswilligerGenosse said:


> Gaffen.
> 
> All the debates about this behaviour occur under the term _gaffen_. More specifically _Unfallgaffen_.



Thank you! I'm almost positive that's the term I was looking for.


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## Kajjo

bearded man said:


> _krankhafte Neugier_


 BM's suggestion is generally fine. This is idiomatic German and not just a literal translation.

_Krankhafte Neugier_ is a very strong curiosity, much more than adequate for a situation.


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## Kajjo

HilfswilligerGenosse said:


> More specifically _Unfallgaffen_.


Das Wort habe ich so noch nie gehört. Soll das ein substantiviertes Verb sein? Warum in einem Wort?!

Es gibt _Gaffer_, gerade leider auch recht häufig bei Unfällen.

@Mudblood: I recommend to use _Gaffer _and maybe add some adjective like "blutlüstern" to emphasize the "morbid" part.


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## Alemanita

Das Wort "das Unfallgaffen" gibt es mindestens seit 2005.
Aus einem Forum:
Thema: Warum ist denn Unfallgaffen so interessant???? | Forum für schwule und bisexuelle Jungs - dbna
*
"Warum ist denn Unfallgaffen so interessant????*



Verfasst am: 30.10.2005, 20:54    Titel: Warum ist denn Unfallgaffen so interessant????"

Offtopic: wer diese Tätigkeit ausübt, ist der Unfallgaffer.
Hier die Klage der Mediziner hierzu:
Text 5


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## Kajjo

Alemanita said:


> Das Wort "das Unfallgaffen" gibt es mindestens seit 2005.


Das wäre dann ja, wie von mir gefragt, ein substantiviertes Verb, oder? Natürlich kann man dieses Wort bilden und das ist auch schon mehrfach geschehen. Es ist aber nicht das typische, idiomatische Wort.

Wenn du schon Google-Suchen verwendest, dann ist eine Trefferzahl von ca. 1700 für _Unfallgaffen _extrem wenig und zeigt schon, dass es entweder eine Neubildung ist oder aber wenig idiomatisch. _Unfallgaffer_ wird schon zehnmal häufiger verwendet und "Unfall ... Gaffer" hat fast eine Mio Treffer, Gaffer alleine 6.4 Mio.

Wenn wir einem Fragesteller ein Wort empfehlen, so doch möglichst eines, das wirklich repräsentativ und üblich ist. _Gaffer_ sind diese _rubbernecks_.


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## Alemanita

Sensationsgierige Schaulust käme vielleicht dem "morbid" nahe.
Krankhafte Neugier kenne ich nur im Zusammenhang mit unausgelasteten Nachbarinnen oder eifersüchtigen Frauen.


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## Mudblood

@Kajjo & @Alemanita thank you for taking the time to respond! I wish I could reply in German, but I never studied German. I copied your comments into google translate though, so I'm pretty sure I'm understand where you're both coming from. Quick question though, would _gaffen _apply to other situations besides car accidents?

Someone else asked this question in a reddit thread and it made me curious, because it seems like I'm always coming across fun German words that perfectly express some universal experience that's hard to put to words in English. The other person seems to be trying to remember a German word he heard before. I wouldn't be surprised if whatever he heard before was somewhat idiomatic or even an internet neologism. A few people had already suggested _gaffen_, so in my reply I said people here also suggested _gaffen_ and told him about _krankhafte Neugier_ and _Unfallgaffen_ as well to see if either of those sounded familiar to him. He said, "Thanks! I guess that's what it is then. Appreciate it!" and closed the thread. I'm not sure we found the exact word he thought he was looking for, but maybe someone said the right one and he didn't recognize it or there's always the possibility that he's looking for something that doesn't exist.


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## bearded

Zwischen _Unfallgaffen _und _krankhafter Neugier _gibt es insoweit einen Unterschied, weil ersteres ein Verhalten und letzteres eine 'geistliche' Neigung oder Einstellung ist, denke ich.
/
I think that _Unfallgaffen _is a behaviour, and _krankhafte Neugier _is rather an attitude or a tendency.


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## Mudblood

bearded man said:


> Zwischen _Unfallgaffen _und _krankhafter Neugier _gibt es insoweit einen Unterschied, weil ersteres ein Verhalten und letzteres eine 'geistliche' Neigung oder Einstellung ist, denke ich.
> /
> I think that _Unfallgaffen _is a behaviour, and _krankhafte Neugier _is rather an attitude or a tendency.



1. We are looking for a word that describes an attitude or a tendency.
2. What's the difference between gaffen and gaffer?


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## bearded

Mudblood said:


> What's the difference between gaffen and gaffer?


_gaffen _is the verb (infinitive form) and the _Gaffer _is the person (the curious onlooker..). The latter should be written with initial upper case, like all nouns in German.


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## Mudblood

In that case, _krankhafter Neugier_ is the best fit. My guess is the person imagined he'd seen a word for it on a list like this one: 21 Perfect German Words We Need In English. That kind of thing trends on facebook every so often, so my guess is this person thought he remembered seeing a one-word expression for _krankhafter Neugier _on a buzzfeed list or something like that. It doesn't seem to exist though, because I assume someone here would have come up with it already. I spent some time googling it before I posted here and found several other people asking the same exact question and none of them ever received a satisfying answer.


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## bearded

I'm almost sure that you will receive further inputs from German native speakers. In the meantime, please note it should be _krankhaft*e* Neugier _in the nominative or subject case.  Declension case endings are of great importance in the German language.


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## Kajjo

Mudblood said:


> Quick question though, would _gaffen _apply to other situations besides car accidents?


Yes, you can use _gaffen_ for all kind of rubbernecking behaviour. It's about observing to satisfy you nosiness-driven lust for bad luck, blood, damage and what ever bad things can happen to others. Car accidents and train wrecks are the main usage, but you could apply the word in harmless situations like tripping and injuring as well if someone just observes out of nosiness and enjoying the spectaculum.


bearded man said:


> I think that _Unfallgaffen _is a behaviour, and _krankhafte Neugier _is rather an attitude or a tendency


That's right.

Once again I need to emphasise that _Unfallgaffen_ is NOT a common word. _Gaffen _is the common, normal, idiomatic verb. I recommend not to use _Unfallgaffen_ because it sounds quite strange in most contexts. Google gives almost no hits on this, too. Forget about _Unfallgaffen_. It can be used as on-the-fly compound noun as typical in German in all situations where it really fits. It a valid word, but it's not commonly used. Stick to _gaffen_, please.

_Krankhafte Neugier_ is an attitude that can be directed towards everything you want to know, it is not specifically addressing rubbernecking at accident sites. But it might be the driving force to do so.


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## manfy

Mudblood said:


> [...] My guess is the person imagined he'd seen a word for it on a list like this one: 21 Perfect German Words We Need In English. That kind of thing trends on facebook every so often, so my guess is this person thought he remembered seeing a one-word expression for _krankhafter Neugier _on a buzzfeed list or something like that. [...]



Based on this, I can think of one adjective with a similar ring to it: "sensationsgeil" (literally: 'disaster/action-horny')
It describes a human tendency that often (but not exclusively) goes in the direction of 'morbid curiosity'.


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## Mudblood

manfy said:


> "sensationsgeil" (literally: 'disaster/action-horny')


1. lol!
2. Hmm do you think that would be similar to either of these: "sensation seeking" or "thrill-seeker"? In English, those expressions have a connotation that you seek out thrilling activities to personally participate in in order to elicit heightened sensations. There would need to be enough context for someone else to understand what you were talking about if you were going to say you keep looking at something because you're sensation seeking or a thrill seeker (like a pyromaniac is the only thing that comes to mind for that one).

Another example might be... Your friend opens up a carton of milk and says, "Eww! This smells gross! You smell it!" And then you go over and smell it. Like why? If it's gross, why would you want to go smell it? But you always do.


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## Kajjo

Mudblood said:


> or "thrill-seeker


No, that's a different thing.

"Sensationsgeil" (less vulgarly: "sensationslüstern") usually focuses on the trait of enjoying to observe what happens to others.


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## manfy

Right! "Sensation seeking" or "thrill seeking" in in particular is the urge to get a rush from high risk activities. Being "sensationsgeil" on the other hand is the urge to observe something that is sensational; it could be any sort of spectacle, also positive ones, but most commonly this attribute with its negative connotations is attached to people who are attracted to disasters or disasterous events.
As such, "sensationsgeil" wouldn't fit at all to your example of spoilt milk, because there's nothing sensational about it.


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## Mudblood

Thanks! Does it only apply to things you can look at? Because the spoilt milk one is technically a sense (sense of smell).


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## manfy

Sort of...maybe. I think the most important part of the negative attribute "sensationsgeil" is that this person is a passive bystander. I certainly wouldn't think of calling any first reponders or people who are rushing there to help "sensationsgeil".
And that makes "sensationsgeil" in its nature very similar to "rubbernecking", it's driven by a morbid curiosity without any intention of helping or getting involved, right?


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## Mudblood

Exactly. That seems like it has to be the word the other guy was trying to think of. I'll try to tell him. I was interested too after he asked, so thanks for satisfying my (not morbid) curiosity.


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