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By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

Schadenfreude — the joy one experiences in someone else's trouble — is all the rage these days. Suddenly, it's OK to feel good about someone else feeling bad. Sure, it's an unworthy emotion, but I'm man enough to admit that I've experienced it sometimes. I enjoyed it, too.

I stumbled across schadenfreude — the word, not the feeling — in a New York Times article that was so high and mighty that it didn't bother to define it. I tried to look it up in an old German-American dictionary that I've had since high school (leide+mann=one who suffers). No luck.

Sometime since that dictionary was published, the word — schaden (pain) plus freud (joy) — had its coming-out party. It was Dictionary.com's word of the day on May 10, 2000, and then again on Sept. 4, 2002. Since then, you could have seen it in every publication from Esquire to E!

As often happens with trends that sneak up on you unaware, I suddenly started seeing schadenfreude, the word and the emotion, everywhere.

George Bush said he wasn't gloating when Saddam was vanquished, but you could see in his eyes that he was. And if schadenfreude is good enough for the president, I don't see why we shouldn't follow his lead.

Hawai'i takes its collective schadenfreude from the rest of the nation. We chortle when it snows in Minnesota. We smirk when it rains in Seattle. We fan ourselves and grab our ice teas when its sweltering in Louisiana.

Of course, there are plenty of schadenfreude opportunities in the news every day: Martha Stewart, Kenneth Lay, the Dallas Cowboys. They're all getting theirs now, aren't they? And what about that pompous windbag William Bennett, who went around criticizing America's morals while gambling away $7 million of his family's money? If seeing a hypocrite get his comeuppance isn't schadenfreude, then I don't know what is.

Feeling bad because your boss is on your case? Just wait a bit, because his boss will be on his case pretty soon, and you'll be feeling better for it soon enough. That's schadenfreude.

That sharp dresser your wife is always comparing you to? He's just dripped gravy on his designer polo shirt or just got splashed by a passing car. That's schadenfreude.

I guess we all owe the Germans a word of gratitude for coming up with just the right word for a feeling most of us didn't want to admit has been in our heart's vocabulary for a long time.

Now this new faddish word can take its place alongside some other great German ones I've experienced over the years: angst, katzenjammer (a loud noise or hangover), ohrwurm (literally ear worm, for those little bits of songs that you can't get out of your head), and my favorite German condition of all, orschlusspanik. That's a sense of panic in middle age brought on by the feeling that life is passing you by, which fortunately always is helped by a little schadenfreude.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com