Meryl's Notes Blog

Pronunciation: ‘tsIt-”gIst, ‘zIt

So that’s “zight” “guise+t” like geyser only stop at the “s” and add a “t” on the end. Right?

Dallas Columnist Steve Blow [may require free registration] brought “Zeitgeist” to my attention. While reading his column, I realized I had seen this word appear often especially thanks to Google Zeitgeist, which searches for trends and patterns.

The dictionary (and Google’s Zeitgeist page) define the noun: “The general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.” The definition also says the word is often capitalized. Why? The word comes from two German words that mean “time” and “spirit.”

Steve Blow had a conversation that referred to a Dallas Morning News article that said, “…and NBC has a winner with its zeitgeist series Heroes.” Does that make sense to you? Not to me.

I did a search for zeitgeist on the newspaper’s web site and surprisingly found many articles using the word. A sampling:

“YouTube is the latest Web site to emerge as the symbol and focal point of a zeitgeist.”

“First, a follow-up from last week’s rant about Wikipedia. Must have been something in the Zeitgeist last week.”

” The group’s million-selling 1994 debut, Rubberneck, captured the post-grunge zeitgeist with seething tunes…”

After reading these articles, I still can’t figure out how I would use it in a sentence. Are these even used correctly?

The word is a nice one with its interesting spelling and pronunciation. But it isn’t one we can use everyday. Blow thinks it’s one of those words people use to impress others. Whether people used it right or wrong, Google gets it with its Zeigeist tool.