What’s a word for the act of being so focused on documenting an important event, such as a wedding or an eclipse, that your effort to capture it distracts from experiencing the event itself? The A Way with Words Facebook group has some creative suggestions, including devisolation (rhymes with isolation) and carpe tunnel syndrome. Another word making the rounds is uncaptured, referring to events where people are asked to leave off using their phones and cameras. Intermediation refers to how something mediates between event and observer. Overshadowing occurs when one thing eclipses another, as when a teacher tells a joke in class and the students remember the joke but not the actual lesson. This is part of a complete episode.
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...
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