In my role as a ship officer’s wife, I often accompany my husband to events where the required dress code is formal. He wears a white cutaway jacket with epaulets, tuxedo pants, dress shirt with studs and cuff links, bow tie and cummerbund. I usually wear a little black dress with appropriate shoes, jewelry, hair and makeup. Most of the invited guests dress appropriately and behave with the dignity expected at such an event. But there is always, and I mean always, some complete cretin who unabashedly shows up in shorts, sandals with black socks, a t-shirt and ball cap, and guzzles the champagne and scarfs the hors d’oeuvres completely unaware of how embarrassing, inappropriate, and disrespectful he is being.
That feeling you get when you see something like that — or like our SCROTUS’ behavior today with the German Chancellor has a word: fremdschämen.
It’s apparently a relatively new word, having been added to the German equivalent of the Urban Dictionary in 2009. It’s a reflexive, informal verb which means “to feel ashamed about something someone else has done; to be embarrassed because someone else has embarrassed himself (and doesn't notice). I’ll add “and doesn’t care.”
