I have a challenge and I'm afraid it takes some explaining: I'm looking for a word to sum up all of the below:
A. is decluttering, he took into work some old quiz books and gave them to his friend (who happens to be his boss), this made his friend/boss extremely happy. A's aim was to make his friend happy, but he has also benefitted as he has decluttered, and has of course scored some brownie points with a senior work colleague. Now surely there has to be a word, much like the concept of schadenfreude to describe a benevolently selfish act?
Points to remember -
- The self interested consequences of the act remained unknown to the other person
- The intentions of the act were equally please another as well as to benefit selfishly: the huge amount of joy felt by the recipient only served to exacerbate the joy in having secretly served a selfish purpose.
Either a real word (from any language) or a very good made up term. Surely there has to be something?
4 comments:
I'm sure there's a short phrase scratching at the back of my mind, in English, that fits the bill perfectly. Kenneth Graeme would have known it, and so, oddly enough, would Hemingway. For now, though, since I can't think of it, I humbly suggest a substitute: Dylan is feeling Munchen-Gladbach. This is not only convincingly faux-Deutsch, suitably crunchy and has echoes of its English (ahem) meaning, but also refers to "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads". Peace out, me dearios.
I've got the impression that somewhere around my brain I must know the answer to this, that surely there is a single word for such jammyness... but... it's not happening.
Incidentally these little devils ... which I must admit an addiction to, are called ellipses. I didn't know that until Saturday.
I am liking a made up word Selevolence :0)
There's a nice lilting quality to selevolence...
I still haven't managed to come up with anything. I have written to the OED now though.
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