English has too many words already. But given the amount of time people spend with their heads tilted, muttering "what's the word I'm looking for?", perhaps our language could use a few more words.
Here are some situations that create in me such specific emotions, I feel they should get their own words.
-A bunch of people are hanging out around a computer, watching YouTube videos one after the other as people blurt out suggestions. You are convinced your video is the funniest, even if everyone laughs harder at poorly animated stick figure violence.
-You and a stranger are sitting next to each other in the library, quietly reading in the periodicals section. A cranky toddler stomps by, screaming, and tears a few magazines off the shelves. A harried mother follows, throws the magazines back in the wrong places, and yells almost as loudly as the toddler. You and the stranger exchange an eye-roll.
-You're somewhere loud and can't really understand the person you're chatting with, so you're just nodding a lot. They're getting more and more animated about something, and you realize you have no idea what they're talking about. You start looking for an easy exit from the conversation before they ask you a question that will betray your poor listening skills.
-The NCAA bracket you filled out based on color preference and midwestern solidarity wins against brackets filled out by the basketball fans in your office. (A college basketball fan would have to use the same word, but with "un" or "dis" in front of it.)
Anyone else have situations that generate strong and specific, but unnamed, feelings?
5 comments:
Kara and I talk about this one a lot... When someone you should know recognizes you, but you can't figure out their name or who they are, so instead of recognition they get this sort of blank stare that makes the whole situation really, really awkward.
How about a word for when you can't think of a word for something... and you can't even think of the words "I can't think of the word"? That happened to me today. :)
Hahaha. So what was the final word you were thinking of?
the feeling you get when you're extremely tired and a random comment that normally would elicit no response from you suddenly makes you either want to laugh OR burst into tears, but you can't figure out which, so the noise that comes out of you is a crazy sounding half-cackle. (i guess that's actually TWO words: one for the feeling and one for the sound.) :)
i'm always reluctant to share my examples with people...because a lot of the time there is already a succinct word for what ever I think there isn't a word for. LOL.
But here goes, anyways...
You know sometimes in the morning if you wake up and then kind of doze...and you're sort of awake because you know you're in your room but at the same time you're still having subtle dreams or have traces of the dreams you've had? And then you wake up and it's like "boom!" clean slate. You can't remember what lazy thoughts were floating through your head as you were waking up. What, exactly, is that state called? I don't like "half-awake" or "half conscious." I feel like there should be a specific word that refers to those moments where you haven't quite yet forgotten the dreams you had the night before. When even though you're lying in your bedroom, you've still got a faint recollection or awareness of another realm or state of consciousness.
Anyways...cool ideas...:)
Lots of love,
Zeph
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