"Masken-Raffke" and compliance problem: these days one phrase chases the next

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Deputy Nikolas Löbel: A business was thundered

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Christian Spicker / imago images / Christian Spicker

Words are circulating faster than a new cryptocurrency.

A fresh phrase, so to speak, puts the handle in the hand of the next and is already out the door before you can see through its mendacity.

One such phrase is the "mask-Raffke".

Characterized by the boulevard in Berlin, including the hyphen happily swallowed and picked up by RTL to AfD, from Schwäbischer to Süddeutscher Zeitung.

According to Brockhaus from 1895, a phrase is a "phrase, idiom, often with the subordinate term of the void, the meaningless, the not seriously meant".

The shirring, on the other hand, is plucking, plucking and hurriedly snatching up - as children do when sweets are suddenly in abundance, but only available for a short time.

Actually cute.

The Raffke comes from the Berlin dialect of the twenties, it is, so to speak, a Volker-Kutscher word.

The popular envy of people who quickly got a lot of money in the need after the First World War - and who like to show it - has influenced this.

The word settles between the bigwig, who is more likely to perch on old property, and the rodent, eyeing Raffzahn on "the quick marrow".

The »ke« as an ending mocks and belittles the Raffke, like the Piefke and the Steppke.

In pandemic times, we all strive to always have enough masks on hand.

So we gather them.

Only Nikolas Löbel and Georg Nüßlein didn’t gather masks, but instead smelled and made a deal in a medical emergency.

Consultations and mediations are time-consuming, especially for members of parliament.

Fees equivalent to a small car or a single-family house quickly come together.

The "Raffke" belittles the way the "sinner" does it.

This is how the would-be, Habebald, acts, according to Goethe, "undaunted in taking," just takes what he can get.

He (or she) chats and does, also holds hands for gifts from Azerbaijan.

The Raffke sounds so popular that the people soon believe it themselves - and parrot the euphemistic formula senselessly.

Incidentally, the "mask ruffian" disguises the fact that it may be about criminal acts and, on the side, about moral reprehensibility.

The "Raffke" belittles the way the "sinner" does it.

A poor "traffic offender" broke only one of these many rules.

A dangerous criminal is anyone who drives 220 where only 120 are allowed.

Some newspapers then turn it into a »Autobahn Rambo«.

If corrupt politicians are "Raffkes", then Vladimir Putin is a rascal.

Another term that is currently making the rounds is much smoother than "Raffke" - in a newspaper that otherwise zealously shoots around with prejudicial hyphenation.

There isn't one manager there who has taken advantage of his managerial position in the shabbiest of ways.

Possibly it is about bullying and coercion, it is about »screwing, encouraging, firing«.

It's about a boss who has to face a compliance procedure.

Compliance!

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Compliance describes the rules that a company gives itself in order to punish behavior that may be below the level of delinquency.

Has he broken the house rules, the good morals?

Was he a Raffke?

But no, the gentleman only has one problem with compliance.

The word sounds wonderful at first and not at all shabby.

On the contrary.

It sounds like gloves made of silk, like exclusivity: »Have you seen the new Aston Martin Compliance?

A dream of a car! "

Anyone who is found guilty of serious compliance violations must dress warmly.

Here the phonetic elegance of the word obscures the harshness that can come with it.

In both cases, in the case of the rascal as well as the serious eraser, the so-called »presumption of innocence« applies until the contrary is proven by courts or external law firms.

A completely technical and not at all smooth term.

But it does its job if you let it.

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