World-Beater

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Rachel and I’m calling from New York.

Hi, where in New York are you?

I’m in Brooklyn.

Rachel, what’s on your mind?

I have a reoccurring need for a word. It’s kind of when you think you’ve heard everything or you’ve fathomed everything and then someone tells you something or you witness something that is just completely out of your previous realm of conception, if that makes sense. So it’s kind of like when your mind is blown, but that seems kind of clunky. I’m sure there’s something. There’s got to be something out there.

You’re looking for a verb or a noun?

I feel like it should be a verb.

Okay. Can you give us a concrete example of something that would prompt you to have that kind of reaction?

You know, the only example I could think of is kind of funny, but I was 16. I’m from Seattle, so I’m kind of a hippie. I was invited to my brother’s birth, and I was prepared. I know where babies come from. But being in a room with five people, and then there was this sixth person that just appeared, and it was mind-blowing. And it’s not awe. It’s not wonder. It’s not befuddlement. It’s more of an experience because if someone tells you something kind of unbelievable, you’re like, wow, and you kind of think about it. But to experience it is kind of – children probably feel this all the time, like their mind is constantly being blown because they’re learning so quickly. But it happens less so with adults where you’re going along thinking that you know everything kind of and then something out of your realm of conception happens.

Yeah, words are so inadequate for that kind of experience. I mean, what you’re describing makes sense, that kind of visceral experiencing of something rather than being told about it or reading about it. It’s in your marrow, isn’t it? It’s a hair-raising tooth.

For sure. Any words you try to put to that kind of experience just seem inadequate, don’t they? I mean, mind-blowing is such a cliche now. It’s sort of watered down. Epiphany is kind of something you find out for yourself more than it is just something that happens to you or around you, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe in the religious sense, an epiphany is external, kind of. There’s a word that I learned a long time ago. I don’t remember who wrote it, but it was a world beater. Something amazing is a world beater, or you might say that’s a world beating event, which meaning it’s the best of its kind or the beatingest kind in the whole world is better than everything. World beater makes me think of marmalade dropper, you know, which is you’re sitting there with your jam and toast and reading the newspaper in the morning, or as you used to, and you would just drop your marmalade at something in the newspaper because it was so amazing or horrifying.

Yeah, I mean, in some ways, I mean, we’re looking for some kind of grandiose word, and I’m thinking of ineffable or something like that, like something you literally can’t really say. But in some ways I’m thinking something really mundane like marmalade dropper might be justice. You said phenomenon earlier. It’s not quite phenomenon, though. You’d almost need an adjective in front of that. Doozy is too gentle. Humdinger is too small. Something unfathomable I love because it’s got the image of outstretched arms, if you go back to the etymology. But, I mean, isn’t the point that you can’t find a word for that?

Yeah, maybe. I mean, how do you describe in one word a sudden shift in your worldview?

Special.

Special, yeah. Really special. Maybe the best thing that can be said about it is a paragraph and not a single word. Maybe a single word would always shortchange the whole feeling that you’re having. And I find that when people struggle to find one word to encapsulate a concept, they discard whole important features of the idea that they’re thinking about in order to get to that one word. It’s like they’re shaving off the corners of the object to get it to fit into the box.

Rachel, I don’t know that we’ve helped.

No, you have. And I think that that’s a beautiful thing that you said. It’s experiential, and that’s why we communicate and use words, is because we want to share experiences that maybe can’t be shaved down to a tweet or just one word. So thank you so much.

Rachel, thank you so much.

Thanks again.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

What’s the noun or verb that you would use in a situation where your whole life experience was suddenly turned around and forever after you saw the world differently?

You know, I did have a Spanish speaker once say to me, you moved my floor.

Oh, nice.

In English, you moved my floor. You moved my floor. Which meant I just totally turned this person’s world upside down.

Yeah, maybe you’ve got a better word for it.

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