I invite you to discover (as I recently have) the important work of John Koenig.
He is a writer who is on a mission to come up with words for all those feelings and situations in life where a suitable word should already exist, but doesn’t.
A few words have been stolen from foreign languages to fill the gaps, such as schadenfreude, joie-de-vivre and craic, but there aren’t nearly enough, so Koenig is busy dealing with the rest through The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which exists in website, YouTube channel and book forms.
Partly to help the cause, but also because it can be fun (so try it), I have started compiling my own list, based on personal life experiences and everyday frustrations.
So I offer the following.
Dysduplication: the point when a twin realises that most other people in the world don’t have a twin.
Erruff: the involuntary (and pointless) noise you make (and increasingly as you get older) when you bend down or get up.
Freeroading: the feeling you get on your bike that freewheeling (even downhill) is somehow cheating.
Phewgilism: the relief you feel when you wake up and realise it was just a dream.
Nod’s Law: the disappointment you feel when you wake up and realise it was just a dream.
Postvacatience: the weird (familiar yet unfamiliar) way your house appears when you get back from two weeks’ holiday.
Catanonce: a sudden realisation of the absurdity of talking to an animal in a language it cannot possibly understand (ie, English).
Onosesame: the frustration of having to create or remember yet another bloody internet password.
Rainparaded: having your day spoiled by an inaccurate weather forecast.
Undeloreanism: having to accept that you will never be able to travel in time.
Wherenow Syndrome: the sudden loss of faith in the satnav to get you to your destination.
Carnivornotics: the art of trying to look impressed when people try to impress you with how rare they like their steak.
Dutchblushed: the embarrassment of English people in the presence of foreigners over the fact that we only speak our own language.
Qwertyism: a nostalgia for typewriters.
Zedism: the disappointment of realising that CTR-Z cannot be applied in real life.
Tribafflement: the dilemma of having to ask someone to say a word for a third time, because you still didn’t hear it, or you still can’t understand their accent.
Olivered: the disappointment of finding your plate is now empty, but you are still hungry.
Foodiddled: the injustice you feel when someone suggests splitting a restaurant bill, even though your meal cost much less than half of the total.
Contradooming: the act of Swindon people explaining to strangers that negotiating the Magic Roundabout is easier than they think, and it is not called ‘magic’ for nothing.
And finally, hyperonic: the profound irony of there not being a single word to describe what I have just been on about.
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