Erklärungsnot

Erklärungsnot (pronounced air-klair-oongs-noht)

Difficulty in explaining oneself; being at a loss for an explanation when one is in an awkward position, especially if one of one’s own making.

1980s: The construct was Erklärung (explanation, declaration, account) + not (distress, need, predicament, difficulty), thus literally “explanation distress”, best translated as “difficulty in explaining oneself” or “being at a loss for an explanation” but more graphically so as “explanation poverty”.  The construct of the verb erklären (to explain, to declare) was er- (a productive German verbal prefix (often indicating bringing something to completion or making something explicit)) + klären – (to clarify, to make clear).  Klären was from klar (clear), ultimately from the Latin clārus (clear, bright, famous); it was cognate with the English clear (gained via French influence from the same Latin root) and declare (from the Latin declarare).  Not (need, hardship, distress, emergency) was an old Germanic word that was cognate with the Old English nēad (necessity, compulsion), the English need, the Dutch nood and the Swedish nöd.  It was seen in many German compounds, two of late appearing increasingly in German news reports being Wohnungsnot (housing shortage) and Geldnot (financial distress).  The most common use in German appears to be in the phrase Erklärungsnot geraten (to get into Erklärungsnot), the charm of which is it can be as a lament (if of oneself) or said gleefully (in an act of schadenfreude) if of others.  Erklärungsnot is a noun; the noun plural is Erklärungsnöte.

The standard plural is Erklärungsnöte and not Erklärungsnots but if ever the word is assimilated and if the usual practice followed (English conventions used in plural formations) erklärungsnots will become an “alternative plural”.  As a general principle, German nouns ending in “-not” generally form their plural by taking an umlaut (a diacritical mark (¨) placed over a vowel (specifically in German “ä”, “ö” & “ü”) to indicate a shifted or fronted sound) and an “-e”; while appending an “-s” is one of the regular patterns in German plural formation, it’s used mostly for foreign loanwords, abbreviations or acronyms, most surnames and certain nouns ending in vowels.  When used in English, the formal rules can be “bent” and even if one is referring to several Erklärungsnöte, the singular Erklärungsnot will “do the job”.  For English-speakers, the pronunciation of Erklärungsnot is not intuitive is best written as air-klair-oongs-noht with stresses on the second (klair) and the final syllables (noht).  German language guides break it down as: (1) air (short and sharp), klair with the German “ä” spoken “ai” as in “hair”, (3) oongs assimilating the “r” in “hair” and thus pronounced like “roongs” (lightly rolling the “r” or dropping it slightly into an “ng” and (4) noht rhymes with “boat”.

Much fun is made of long German compound nouns, the classic example the 42-letter Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän (Danube steamship company captain) although linguistically adventurous Germans fashioned constructions as long as 80 letters that authorities rejected that as phoney, ruling the 63-letter Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (beef labelling regulation and delegation of supervision law) the languages longest “real” word although use was rare, most preferring the more manageable abbreviation ReÜAÜG but it was rendered obsolete by changes to EU regulations meaning the 36-letter Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung (automobile liability insurance) gained the prized distinction.  More digestible forms have been embraced by English-speakers because they say in a few syllables what otherwise would demand a phrase or even a sentence, common examples including zeitgeist (spirit of the age) and schadenfreude (the feeling of joy or pleasure when something bad happens to another person, ideally an acquaintance).  Others offer little phonetic economy such as scheisskopf (shithead) but it’s used because it (1) is a “fun” word” and (2) is semi-euphemistic in that it avoids explicit use of the vulgar “shit”.  By convention, when German nouns are absorbed into English as “loan words” (subtlety different from being assimilated as with “etcetera”), they’re not spelled with an initial capital as in the German.  Erklärungsnot always is used with an initial capital because it remains a non-assimilated “foreign word”, a quality vesting it with an additional quality.  By convention, (ie this is not an absolute rule), in text, loan and assimilated words are not printed in italics, unlike most foreign forms.

Case study in Erklärungsnot: Chelsea Clinton (b 1980; FDOTUS 1993-2001)) & Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) watching crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) on stage with Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) second presidential debate, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, 9 October, 2016.  Mr Clinton was a serial offender or, as he may have put it, a “serial victim”. 

For students of political mendacity & obfuscation (a well-documented field), examples of course abound and, to succeed in the business, the art of “handling Erklärungsnöte” must be mastered to the point it’s a politician’s stock-in-trade.  Of course, a politician might (at least briefly) succeed by being truthful but it seems doubtful that’s ever been tried so empirical data is lacking.  While the behavioural phenomenon of Erklärungsnot would have pre-dated the Stone Age, the word, although constructed with old elements, is not ancient, the first use thought to be by journalists during the early 1990s (ie shortly after German re-unification although perhaps no significance should be attached to that, German politicians having long before often been “at a loss to explain something”).  Quickly it became a staple of German political commentary and from there spread to wider use, it’s popularity artificially exaggerated in the statistics because the internet encouraged a proliferation of lists of rare words or those thought fun, interesting, weird and such.  In English, it has never caught on to the same extent as the loan words zeitgeist, schadenfreude or scheisskopf, probably because the pronunciation is “challenging”.  So, with no one-word equivalent in English, speakers of that language stuck with phrases like “I’m not absolutely certain (ie “don’t know”) or “it's hard to explain” (ie “if I tell the truth it will be bad for me”), neither of which so elegantly capture the moment.

It can’t with statistical certainty be said politicians more than most suffer Erklärungsnot but generally that perception exists because so many instances of them falling victim are recorded and in some form broadcast (most of us enduring the pain before a smaller audience, often WAGs (wives & girlfriends)).  Some politicians have of course so honed their techniques of avoidance or obfuscation that viewers, long since mentally bludgeoned into an acquiescent insensibility, have “tuned-out” to the extent even lies slur effortlessly into the waffle.  Markers of a politician being in a state of Erklärungsnot include (1) being asked a question and responding with something like “I think it's incredibly important...” before going on to talk about something else, (2) frequent use of the word “obviously” (whether or not things seem “obvious”), (3) rambling off-topic for a while and then saying “what was the question?” and (4) blaming the media.

Barnaby Joyce interviewed by Sarah Ferguson (b 1965) on the ABC’s (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 7:30 Report, July 2026.

One who tried a tactic more novel than the usual clichéd subtleties of evasion was Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022), a man who more than most has come to be confronted with questions he’d rather not answer.  In many cases, he’d be better off displaying his Erklärungsnot (usually otherwise a kiss of political death) than trying to answer because in his latter-day position, being “lost for words” would be better than “trying to come up with something” or (the Lord forbid), “tell the truth” but his commendable tactic was to turn away from his interviewer and “shout at the dog”.  While performative, theatrically, it was great television and while the interviewer doggedly pursued her line, the clever diversion did give Mr Joyce a few moments to “come up with something” and ensured national coverage would be all about “Barnaby’s dog”.  Nobody will remember the questions or the issues raised and, as was the case when he was filmed one midnight, lying drunk beside a planter box in a Canberra street while having an expletive-laden conversation with his (second) wife, the public’s reaction generally was positive.  That's because shouting at their dog of being seen sprawled drunk in the street makes a politician (in the parlance) “authentic”, a valued commodity in an age when so much is (or is assumed to be) “fake”.    

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Erklärungsnot has for generations been well-known to school students asked by the teacher why their homework wasn’t handed in for marking.  The classic “the dog ate my homework” might at the time, briefly, seem a good “work-around” for one’s instant, sinking feeling of Erklärungsnot but telling the truth probably is preferable.  Adults of course (usually) get better at the techniques, the most prevalent one in politics being “plausible deniability” but that can work (at least in the short term) only if the “plausibility” really is to one’s interlocutor(s) truly “plausible”.  Case studies include the lives and times of Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) and Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001), two gifted but flawed characters who, when in the depths of an Erklärungsnot, were inclined to “keep digging”.  This illustrious brace illustrate the word Erklärungsnot is at its most potent when applied to someone embarrassed by circumstances of their own making.  It has been used more generally (such as in cases where someone is the victim of unfortunate events) but that's a different flavor of pathos.