Naava wrote:md0 wrote:Due to the Berlin Elections/Expropriation Referendum, I kept hearing the word
Konzern (e.g. große Immobilienkonzerne) a lot. My naive interpretation was "interests", as in "business interests" - a somewhat loaded term to be expected by expropriation advocates (very similar to Greek "συμφέροντα", literally "interests"). Close, but not quite. It just means "group of companies", or "όμιλος" in Greek.
It's
konserni in Finnish. I didn't know it was borrowed from German before your post.
Wiktionary says German borrowed it from English.
It's
kontsern in Estonian,
концерн in Russian. And..
concern in English.
But in English, the word "concern" is sometimes used to refer to a single business rather than a group of businesses. In German, Estonian, etc. it is used to refer to a group.
After looking on Wikipedia for more info my guess is that maybe the reason English has slightly different usage is because the specific concept it describes isn't as common in English-speaking countries (or the United States) to begin with? Wikipedia specifically says it's common in Europe, and even mentions Germany and the German word for it.
Wikipedia wrote:A concern (German: Konzern) is a type of business group common in Europe, particularly in Germany. It results from the merger of several legally independent companies into a single economic entity under unified management.
This meaning of "a business group" or "group of companies" is how it is used in Estonian too:
Estonian Language Defining Dictionary EKSS wrote:kontsern
juriidiliselt iseseisvate ettevõtete ühendus, mille liikmed sõltuvad oluliselt keskjuhtkonnast.
Liitsõnad: autokontsern, tööstuskontsern, keemiakontsern, naftakontsern.
kontsern
an association of legally independent businesses, whose members depend heavily on central management.
automobile concern, industrial concern, chemical concern, oil concern
Then in English we have the usage that Oxford gives, in which it is not necessarily an association or group but can be just a single business:
Oxford Dictionary wrote:a business; a firm.
"a small, debt-ridden concern"
Similar: company, business, firm, enterprise, venture, organization, operation, undertaking, industry, corporation
I came across the word
concern in English while reading in the past week or two in the context of something like "he owns a very successful concern," but I remember it because it's not especially common in (American) English. I didn't have any trouble understanding it and I'd heard the usage before, but even so, I kind of looked at it funny and thought "I wonder why we call it a 'concern'..." so it's funny that this thread came up today. In (American) usage (in my experience) its usage is not so common that it sounds natural to me; when I read it a while ago, in the back of my mind I was still thinking of the other meaning of "concern" and wondering if the etymology has something to do with being concerned about the business.
(Because, yeah, I do tend to wonder about etymologies of random words while reading.)