Emotions can be hard to define. That’s why there’s The Emotionary, a collection of words made up specifically to capture emotions in a single word, like “intaxication”– the euphoria of getting a tax refund–until you realize the money was yours to start with. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Emotionary”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
A sniglet is a silly, made-up term for something that hasn’t been defined as a single word but perhaps ought to be.
For example, intoxication.
You know, that’s the euphoria that you get at getting a tax refund before you realize that it was your money in the first place, right?
Right, right, right.
And what I particularly like about intoxication is that it defines a feeling.
Because I think that when translating emotions, words really do fall short a lot of times.
And I’ve been thinking about this especially after an email we got from Christina Smith.
She’s from San Diego, and she sent us a link to something called emotionary.com.
And it’s this whimsical collection of Sniglets that specifically pertain to emotion,
Like this one, exochism.
Can you guess what exochism is?
Exochism. Nope, no idea.
That’s the act of torturing oneself by thinking about the existence of or compulsively checking in exes, Facebook, and Twitter feed.
Oh, you can’t stop thinking about your ex.
Or how about epiphyshtiny?
Epiphyshtiny.
Yes.
So some big revelation about something, but I can’t quite make up the parts.
Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
It’s knowing that all your problems are smaller than you think, often due to gazing out at a vast space and realizing how large the Earth is in comparison to how small you are.
Right. Yeah, I know that feeling.
Yeah, yeah.
So it’s got tiny on the end.
That’s the joined up word there, right?
Yes, yes.
And I should just add that an epiphanase is the moment one realizes aioli and mayonnaise are exactly the same thing.
I remember that moment.
I remember that moment.
And I know you can pronounce it aioli too, so don’t email us.
But do email us your questions about language.
You can send them to words@waywordradio.org.
And if you’ve got some sniglets of your own, cute little words about emotions or anything at all,
Send them along, email, Twitter, you name it, put them on Facebook,
Or call us on the phone, 877-929-9673.
