sich bewerben

[pne]

Today, I realised that the German word for "apply" (e.g. to a job) literally means "to advertise oneself".

I don't think I had ever before made the connection between transitive "bewerben" (to advertise something) and reflexive "sich bewerben" (to apply [somewhere]; literally, to advertise oneself)—they had effectively been two completely separate lexemes in my mind.

Comments

[denial-land.livejournal.com]

Huh. Same here.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Weird, isn't it?

I mean, look at things such as "Bewerber, Bewerbungsformular, Bewerbungsgespräch", etc. - they all have "advertising" built right into the words but I never think of that when I read those words, only "application, apply".

And mixing the two words (as in "Diese Produkt wurde mit einem Bewerbungsformular beworben") would look really odd.

[anicca-anicca.livejournal.com]

I don't think you have been wrong all along not to hear the "advertisement" in "Bewerbung". This modern sense of advertisement is something that the word "werben" has only acquired recently. The same goes for "etwas bewerben" in the sense of "für etwas Werbung machen.

The etymology given by my good old friend K. Duden for "werben" is:
mhd. werben, ahd. hwerben, = sich drehen, sich bewegen; sich umtun, bemühen.

So, "sich bewerben" is "sich bemühen", not "to advertise oneself".

[pne.livejournal.com]

Oh! Thank you for that comment. That makes sense.

Ah, the fallacy of drawing conclusions from current meanings.

[fridoline.livejournal.com]

Then I suppose one could see it in the context of the old word "werben" in the meaning of to court someone. "Bewerben" could be seen as a sort of courtship between the one who offers and the one who applies for the job.

Hm, I it's a bit difficult to express, but perhaps you get my meaning.

[leighbug]

That's interesting. I apparently didn't get far enough into German to learn that word. It's a much better definition than what people in the US use. I think people wouldn't complain about not getting jobs as much if they knew they were advertising themselves badly by going in with bad-looking resumes and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.

P.S. Thanks for the Christmas card! I didn't get ours out yet...so you'll be getting a late Christmas card.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

Do you associate "apply" in this context with any other meaning of that word, like "anwenden" etc. or do you see it as a separate word?

[pne.livejournal.com]

Hm, good question.

I think probably separate, too.

Another relevant meaning of "apply" is "apply oneself to something", which seems to be similar to what anicca_anicca said above ("sich bemühen").

[nitaq.livejournal.com]

hehe, stimmt :)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was struck by that from the moment I first learned the term. It never seemed odd to me because I'd always been told about the need to "sell yourself" when approaching potential employers.