My favourite German word - as regards meaning

As a translator from German to English, I have to deal with the German language every day. I've also read a whole shedload of books on the German language and the changes it has been subjected to. 

Over time and with experience, I've come to the conclusion that the best new German word is...Verschlimmbesserung.

It's a portmanteau word that unites 'verschlimmern' and 'Verbesserung'. 

The verb 'verschlimmern' means 'to aggravate' or 'to make worse'. The noun 'Verbesserung' means an 'improvement'.

The word 'Verschlimmbesserung' means an improvement that actually makes things worse.

The longer I live, the more I see examples of this. One famous one is the German spelling reform (or 'orthography reform' to give it its proper title), which took place in 1996. Until then, there had been certain phrases, for example, that were written with small letters, e.g. 'im voraus' = in advance; im großen und ganzen = on the whole. The reason the words were all written with small letters was that they were not to be taken literally. 

However, the reformers reasoned that as the word 'im' was in the phrase, it implied that what came after it was a noun so the word had to be written with an initial capital letter - just like all nouns in the German language. 

There were other changes that you could just about grasp the argument behind. 

Since then there have been 'refinements' to these new rules. In 2004, 2006, 2011 and 2017. 

And now, no-one is really sure of how to spell German words any more. This means, therefore, that a reform intended to simplify spelling has just cause more chaos than ever before.

A real Verschlimmbesserung.

Got any other examples of such a phenomenon? Feel free to comment.