Yayboo

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, this is Marta from Birmingham, Michigan.

Hi Marta, how are you doing?

Hi Marta.

Good, how are you guys?

Excellent.

What’s going on?

So I have a question about a word to fit a particular emotion.

My good friend and colleague recently got a new job, and we’re incredibly excited for her. It’s going to be a great opportunity, but we’re also a little sad that she’s leaving. And we were trying to find a word to describe that.

We had done some research and found things like bittersweet and rueful, but that doesn’t seem to capture the genuine excitement that we feel for her as she’s going forward. It kind of conjures an image of someone sort of gazing out a window as it’s raining outside, and it just seems sort of melancholy.

And so what I was wondering, if there’s a word either in English or in another language that captures kind of being simultaneously really, really excited for somebody, but also a little bit sad as well.

Okay.

So you’re just a little sad, but really excited.

Yes.

Kind of selfishly sad.

Like 80% excited and 20% sad.

Okay.

That’s useful.

Yeah.

Interesting about bittersweet.

I had a newspaper editor who would never let us use the word bittersweet in a story.

Why not?

He just felt it was terribly cliched that it really didn’t say much.

Bittersweet is probably the most appropriate choice and the one people most likely have heard of.

I’ve seen people online use yay boo as an interjection.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

How do they spell that?

Y-A-Y hyphen B-O-O or no hyphen, but yay boo, which is when you say, yeah, so I got my new car, but I immediately got a new scratch on the side door. It’s like yay boo.

So this is a little bit of a yay boo to me.

I like Yebu very much.

I was reaching to other languages because I can’t think of anything else in English. There’s a great expression in German that translates as with a laughing and a crying eye, which I kind of like.

I like that.

That’s great.

Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that you would say if you’re sending a kid off to college. You’re proud.

The other thing that I’m thinking about, Marta, is that there is, I don’t know much of modern Greek at all, but there is a term in modern Greek, which is spelled C-H-A-R-M-O-L-Y-P-E, or harmolipi.

Okay.

What does it mean?

It means bitter joy, sweet sadness, that kind of thing. You see that among, say, Greek Orthodox Christians when they’re talking about the ramp up in Holy Week. You know, there’s a bittersweetness to it because you’re sad because of the crucifixion, but anticipating the resurrection.

But you can also use that at, say, your big fat Greek wedding, you know, where you’re sad that your son or daughter is going off, but happy for them too.

Karmalipi.

Karmalipi.

Karmalipi.

That’s nice.

Yeah.

I don’t know.

Marta, do any of those appeal to you or sound like something that you and your friends could actually use?

I think Yebu is a really good one. I sort of like that because there is the definite sort of the yay kind of captures the really excitement and elated feeling. And boo is sad, but not too sad.

So I think that fits kind of the 80 percent, 20 percent sort of dichotomy that we had of the emotions right there. But I sort of like all of them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

Yeah.

You could probably turn that into any part of speech, too.

Well, congratulations to your friend. And I hope you all can stay in touch.

Great.

Thanks, Marta.

Thank you so much for your help.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

All righty.

Bye-bye.

I bet our listeners would have ideas on this too.

Yeah.

What do you use for happy and sad together that’s not bittersweet?

Is there an adjective or some other way of expressing it in your family or your workplace?

Yeah.

Tell us about it.

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