by Claudia Linker (Monnet)
TO BE QUICK-WITTED, TO RETALIATE, OR EVEN COUNTER-ATTACK, IS A WIDESPREAD DESIRE.
The German word for being quick-witted though, is “schlagfertig“ and it means: being ready to beat … the “adversary“. That’s why, so far, I had refused requests for lectures on the subject. Do a picture search in your search engine for that German "schlagfertig". Well? Exactly. Boxing gloves, fists, thunder arrows everywhere. No wonder, with the German word, your brain will automatically generate violent associations: you’ll feel at least a little bit like you're tripping in the boxing ring and ready for the punch. But the boxing ring doesn't fit one of my two core concerns: successful communication.
I shared my thoughts with entrepreneurial women in Schleswig, where I spoke on 5 February 2020: "You're also allowed not to reply sometimes," I said. “A confident break is the most powerful communication strategy.“ Behind the desire for quick-wittedness are needs: I want to be treated with respect. Having a conversation, I seek openness, genuine attention, mutual understanding and attention for each other.
The idea of a counterattack means something different and that idea is inherent to "schlagfertig": there are winners and losers and we’ll rather be rocking up and down with heated minds. How could even we Germans develop a more harmonious term? I like to use my penchant for languages (see also my blog entry of 1 December 2015) and ask myself: What is the word in other languages? What associations come with it?
I do like the English: to be quick-witted – to answer with a quick joke really can help oftentimes.
But I am even more fond of the French “répondre du tac au tac“ – ... Well, how should I explain that?!
"Du tac au tac" is an onomatopoeia from the fencing sports. We do know the idea of having to fight out something, don’t we? But when I hear the "tac-tac" sound, I can almost see the elegance of the "piste": the fencers dancing back and forth in a crazy tempo, elegantly leading the foil – and the metallic "tac-tac". There is a lot of fun to it. Nobody is knocked out. At best "touché". It’s by contact that you win in fencing. Oh yes, I like that much better!
Charmingly disarming. Doesn't that sound better than "right in the face"? Verbal disarmament seems to me in many places to be the order of the day. Rather elegantly eloquent.
Welcome to my training, whoever wants to practice:
Taking breaks confidently (and enduring them!) is, by the way, a topic in "Performing convincingly"
Charmingly disarming in "How to get your words across - and with ease"