Is there a word for being totally proud of something and completely ashamed at the same time?
Context: Super Mario Summary reworks every level of Super Mario Bros. on a single screen, turning a side-scrolling platformer into a devious, addictive puzzle. Amazingly, it was built in only 48 hours by Swedish developer Johan Peitz as part of the Ludum Dare game competition. Read his postmortem of making the game.
You deserve our congratulations and condolences.
Yes, condulations.
Yeah, I’m down with OPP, you know me.
If we walk the possibly best road, if such a word exists for feeling proud and ashamed then that word should be a German word.
So, I say we start by combining the two words in the respective order. That would result in:
stolz-schämen, or stolzschämen
Now, it goes without saying that I can’t speak or read German very well. So, there is a chance a specific word already exists or that the words should be reversed in order. If the latter is true, it would sound cooler: schämenstolz. That could be changed a bit and used in a sentence, probably badly:
Ich bin eine schämenstolzen.
It would be great to hear Arnold Schwarzenegger pronounce that because it would be hilarious sounding, especially if he were drunk.
Now, I am not a fan of memes, you should know this. But, what the hey, new words: count me in.
As a follow-up:
I suppose there is a very good chance such a word would likely appear as an insult leveled by others rather than something someone would use to describe themselves, with a sense of schämenstolz.
So, if it began as an insult, it would be tunneled down the usual roads and likely be something like:
faux-shame
or some sickening variation that some generation of hipster would level against someone in an attempt at being clever.
oh. wait. did I just write that? shit. Though, knowing my luck, the word already exists in some novel written when someone was too young to know better.