Do Germans have mad ideas or just quirky ideas?

Do Germans have mad ideas or just quirky ideas?

Recently I have tried to convey the meaning of the German word “verrückt” to some of my students. It is often translated as “mad”, “crazy” or “silly”, but none of these definitions manages to convey the underlying connotation of “verrückt”. Literally, it means “moved to another place” or “shifted”.  In German, we use this word in a literal sense when we have shifted a piece of furniture. Therefore, when native speakers of German talk about a “verrückte Idea”, it still conveys the underlying meaning of having gained a different perspective. The closest translation in my mind would therefore be a “quirky idea”.

Other English translations would be “a mad idea”, “a crazy idea” or a “silly idea”. From a German native speaker’s perspective, these carry slightly different undercurrents. They seem to be carrying a greater amount of doubt, both of the idea itself and the thinker’s state of mind.

A friend of mine, who is highly creative, but not very confident about himself, often uses the expression “I’ve had this mad idea…”. Often his ideas turn into very interesting and quirky projects. Interestingly, the word “mad” in English is also used in the sense of “angry”. For example: “I am so mad about this speed fine!” I wonder if my friend’s labeling his creative thoughts as  “a mad idea” serves as a disclaimer: “Don’t be mad with me if it doesn’t work out”. Or does it mean: “This idea sounds impossible, but I would still like to try it”?

When I hear somebody commenting: “This is a crazy idea!” I seem to detect underlying doubt or even dissuasion: “Don’t do it, it is not a good idea, don’t waste your time.” It seems they are saying: “This is a silly idea” rather than “What a quirky idea”.

In the English language the “mad scientist” is a popular cliché and often accompanied by images of Albert Einstein. Many of his contemporaries in Germany would have called his ideas “verrückt”, and the ideas were “verrückt” in the true sense of the word. He took a different perspective, but thus managed to come a step closer in explaining the workings of our world. So did others such as Nicolaus Copernicus and Ferdinand Magellan.

If  “verrückt” was absorbed into the English language as were other German expressions such as zeitgeist, wanderlust and doppelgänger, would the English speaking world look more kindly and benevolently at ideas deemed crazy, mad, insane, daft, loony, or batty? Maybe it is those ideas, which will in the end provide solutions to the problems we have created by not shifting our perspective.