A Moicherl is a thoughtful person whose actions are often characterized by excessive restraint. But in times of turmoil, it’s okay for leaders to have that quality and not want to acknowledge everything right away.
moicherl
In a recent conversation with a journalist from the Mühldorf district, Olaf Scholz was mentioned and his ability to use a remarkably unemotional way of speaking. The colleague said she didn’t like it at all. When Scholz talks so fussy, he always seems like a moicherl. Ah, how edifying it is to hear such a rare word so unexpectedly. Moicherl (Mejcherl) can hardly be found even in special dictionaries and encyclopedias. When asked what she understood by that, the colleague replied that for her a Moicherl was a staade and thoughtful person whose actions were characterized by too much restraint (“des ned und do ned!”). Such a person is also not willing to stretch out his elbows. However, the journalist admitted that in today’s usual riot debates it is sometimes quite good to have a Moicherl chancellor. Is the word related to the verb moicha (to milk)? A Moicherl would therefore be a good-natured person who is still attached to the mother’s breast. In some areas, the word is only used for women and means something like Trutscherl. The Woaserl (orphan) is known as a counterpart. A Woaserl is timid, awkward and naive. A strict reader once grumbled that we journalists shouldn’t be so sensitive when we are criticized: “Es Woaserl von da SZ!”
anchored
Readers who remember words from their childhood write to us regularly. Words that their parents still used and that are now slowly dying out. Stefan M., who lives in Lower Bavaria, informed us that his mother (born in 1934) still used the verb okentn (to light), which was often heard during the Advent season: “Konnst d’Kerzerl scho okentn, owa gib owacht, dasst you don’t burn.” Michael Kollmer once handed down further meanings in his “Lexikon der Waldlersprache”: “Dem hams ankent (okent)”, which meant: The farmer’s house or barn was set on fire (burned down). “Der hat ankent (okent)” means: He kindled, set fire. It is often said that ankenten comes from the Latin verbs accendere and incendere (to set fire to). The dialectologist Ludwig Zehetner doubts that, because such a derivation would cause insurmountable problems of “sound development”. The fact is that the verb ankenten (English “to kindle”) only occurs in Bavarian. Zehetner therefore considers it a Germanic relict word.