This post is the second post in a two-part epic where I recount an absolute Kladderadatsch of a group project story. I try to avoid posting two words from the same language in a row, but as with Verschlimmbesserung before it, I simply couldn't resist this unfortunately perfect 2020 word. You can read the first …
Tag: noun
Verschlimmbesserung
2020 is a disaster. We entered into this new decade optimistic and excited, talking about the "Roaring Twenties" of yester-century — and now, after just eight months, we're only one horseman short of the Apocalypse. (For those keeping score at home, so far we have Pestilence, Death, and Famine; I don't even want to think …
Untitled
This is the first post I started to write without a word in mind. It had to be about the coronavirus and COVID-19, of course — the situation is so overwhelmingly pervasive that this post started writing itself in my mind without even waiting for a word to come along. So I went ahead and …
Tsundoku
"It's not hoarding if it's books," a popular Internet saying proclaims. I, for one, heartily agree — but maybe I'm biased. I was raised by book lovers; books have been part of my life (and my home) for as long as I can remember. In my childhood homes, they piled up every which where: packed …
Romjul
The week between Christmas and New Year's often feels like a strange sort of limbo. Some people are still on vacation, while others are forced into a brief stint back at work sandwiched between two mini-vacations; you might be subsisting entirely on leftover food for days on end; the presents you received are still brand …
Taivaanrannanmaalari
Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." I've referenced the White Queen's quote from …
Aiteall
Sometimes it seems like the weather where I live is experiencing a constant identity crisis. The storms here are the most unpredictable I've ever seen. There will be entire weeks of continuous forecasted thunderstorms, and during those weeks there might be one day — at most — when a single distant rumble of thunder rolls …
Merak
Happiness is underrated. It's a feeling everyone enjoys, certainly, and one that we are wont to spend our lives pursuing — but not one that we often think much of when we have it, especially when it's triggered by something small in the fleeting moments that we know will quickly pass, as if we're afraid …
Aufbruchstimmung
Moving is something of a phenomenon. It’s not just something you do — it’s a state of mind and a state of being. You find yourself physically and mentally caught between two phases of your life, living neither completely here nor completely there, looking back and at the same time forward. There are a lot …
Soodraght
I've developed a very sudden fondness for Celtic languages. I've always found them interesting; any language that is able to rival English's notoriously low correlation between spelling and pronunciation earns my respect. But only as I began to research Manx, the official language of the tiny Isle of Man, was I struck by how uniquely …