Verschlimmbesserung

English has borrowed the German oxymoron "Schadenfreude" with a bit of schadenfreude of its own: "It takes the Germans to come up with a word like that!"

Here's another German oxymoron that English needs to steal: "Verschlimmbesserung," literally, "worse-bettering." This is when you try to improve something but just make it worse. So next time you come across this phenomenon, use this German word to refer to it: "That's typical verschlimmbesserung!" Or "he verschlimmbessered my article with his prescriptivist editing!"