Watch: This is how to use the word Kafkaesque (and how not to)
Everyone uses it, but do we know what it means?
It's a word that intellectuals love to use. "That's so Kafkaesque," we say, and feel a little smarter for it. But what does the word really mean?
Franz Kafka (July 3, 1883 - June 3, 1924), known widely for his works The Metamorphosis and The Trial, completed his education for a legal career and took a job at an insurance company. It is here that he worked for 12 years while writing through nights, and weekends.
The complexity, profundity and surrealism of his works led to the coinage of the term Kafkaesque, which is used to describe something that is exceedingly complex, bizarre and frustrating, and is often used in the context of bureaucracy.
But the misuse and overuse of the word has often been spoken of.
Kafka’s name has “entered the language in a way no other writer’s has,” said one of his biographers, Frederick Karl, in a 1991 interview. "What I'm against is someone going to catch a bus and finding that all the buses have stopped running and saying that's Kafkaesque," he said. "That's not."
Okay, so then what is? And how can you use the word without coming across as poorly informed?
This video, by writer Noah Tavlin with animation by TED Ed, explains the origin and meaning of this now-ubiquitous term.
Tavlin had previously come up with a video to explain the real meaning of the similarly-misused "Orwellian", which comes from the works of author George Orwell.