What Words Should Exist in English?

The special kind of sadness when you finish a book (or a show) and you miss your fictional friends! This feels particularly hard during a pandemic. :(

Jólabókaflóðið, which is an Icelandic word which means “Christmas Book Flood”. In Iceland, books are usually released the months before Christmas, and people will buy books to give each other on Christmas eve. So it’s a tradition to read the new books you have been gifted that day,

Lagom in Swedish, which means something like just enough or just right. One can for example ask if the food is hot enough, and get the reply that it’s “lagom”.

The feeling to describe when you really wish you could give an experience or thing that you have or had to someone you love, because they really want it so much more than you (but it’s not a thing that can be given).

In my family we call this “otter feeling” because once we went to a holiday cottage in Scotland that my dad had picked because it had a view of a place where sea otters lived and he spent ages looking out for them and telling us about sea otters over the course of the week but didn’t spot one and was so disappointed. Then on the last day my sister was just glancing out of the window and saw them but they were gone too soon for my dad to get there. She just wished she could give the experience to him! Once we had words to describe it, it comes up fairly often.

My husband is a native Spanish speaker from Colombia and taught me “encrucijada.” Literally, it means “crossroads” but, as he explained, it means trying to make a very tough decision. I love it and use it all the time now.

I “invented” a word this morning. Its wake up-mare, like the opposite of nightmare. I had a dream where i had given my exam just to wake up a realize i haven´t even started studying for it. buu

My favorite in Japanese is “umami” to describe food. There is nothing like it in English.
I also love that Arabs live by “Inshallah” … literally meaning “god willing” but more like “if it happens it happens” they do not dwell on the maybes or the things they cannot have. I wish I could live like this.

I’ve just discovered the perfect one! I need a word for that secret thrill in your chest when you realize you’ve visited a place used in the plot of a fiction novel. For just a split-second you’re living real-time in an alternate universe.

Oh my goodness! My husband and I read that article too a long time ago and still use “cluey” for the same reasons. It’s now in our everyday vernacular. I love to know that someone else out there does this! :)

Kjæreste – The Norwegian word for boyfriend/girlfriend meaning Dearest. I love that it’s not specific for gender and it’s such a lovely word to use.
Koselig – similar to the word Hygge, but this means that something is cozy, someone can be nice/sweet, a situation is nice, and you just in general can reply “koselig” when you think it’s something nice/cozy. A hard word to explain but is used all the time in Norway and better than the word Hygge ;)

I’m glad you posted this because I think about this often. I have young kids and am looking for a word to describe the moment when you make a transition that’s bittersweet – like the last time you ever breast feed your baby, the last time you hold them on your hip, the last time they wear a diaper – you typically don’t realize it’s actually THE last time. While you’re ready to move on, if you knew this was it, you might break down and cry. What’s the word for these moments?

There needs to be a verb for the action of taking clothes from the washer and putting them into the dryer. In our house we call this task “adios”, as in “Can you adios the towels for me?”

saudades in portuguese is like a longing, like nostalgia- but sounds so much better

beleza in portuguese is like beauty but you can use it to say cool, like how are you? good. beleza.

In German there’s a word that clearly answers in contrary to a question posed like, “he didn’t leave though?” In English if you say “yes” it could be interpreted either way. But in German the word “doch” would mean yes he did leave. And “nein” is saying no in confirmation of the supposed question, no he didn’t leave.
I always wish there was a doch in English.

The anxiety of not starting a book you want to read so badly because you know it will be over all too soon!
Same with a movie or tv series.
Am I the only one??? haha #sheissoweird

I lived in Zurich for two years in my early twenties and there is a Swiss German word (at least in the Zuri-Deutch dialect) that I love: Gluescht. (imagine the umlaut over the U) Gluescht means you not hungry, but just want the taste of something in your mouth. Really, a craving, but slightly different. I love it and I still use it, twenty plus years later. I have gluescht for potato chips right this very second…

That terrible feeling of getting all the dishes done, to turn around and discover dirty pots and pans on the stove.

Oh yes– the morning after an epic meal! Or even the evening after, when you leave the table feeling full as in physically satiated but also full as in heart-full and are all floaty on your way home.

Here are some of mine:
-the instinctual jolt of empathy + perspective when a friend tells you something tough/difficult (but not tragic) they are experiencing, where you feel so empathetic and want to take away their frustration/annoyance, but suddenly all of the minor annoyances of your own day you almost feel a rush back to apologize like: “ooh I’m sorry I thought MY MEETING today was so bad… you weren’t that bad, meeting!! thank you for being the worst thing in my day that wasn’t that bad at all!” (is mentally apologizing to your annoyances normal? probably not but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

-when you’re in a public place or social situation with someone who you know extremely well and you have a full-blown, multiple part conversation with one glance (especially if it’s a conversation that ends with a quick, subtle, invisible-to-anyone-else hand squeeze or other sign of – “I get it, and I got you”)

-that time of day when you’re just going to be useless and slightly grumpy and it’ll take you 45 min to write a 3-sentence email and nearly everything is going to be “UGHHHHHHHH,” but which you know will pass (and is usually, just like with little kids, aided by a snack) – my team at work and I call it “troughing” as in “I’M TROUGHING” typed in our group chat meaning, universally, NOBODY ASK ME TO DO ANYTHING YOU ACTUALLY NEED DONE QUICKLY AND IF YOU WANT TO SEND ME ANY FUNNY MEME OR SOMETHING NOW WOULD BE HELPFUL

-one of my favorite feelings in the world that my people and I call: “happy-cry” — when you’re so overwhelmed with joy at the magnificence and beauty of the world, in spite of it all, and gratitude at getting to be alive and loved, and nostalgia for a moment before it even ends but sheer ecstasy for getting to experience the endless wonders of life that you don’t always deserve but somehow are swimming in anyway. My sister and I (who will probably read this– hi, e.!) both happy-cry several times daily and I used to be so embarrassed about it but now it is one of my favorite things about myself– usually around books, music, sharing and receiving love, a good dreamy meal like Joanna described, a sunset, reading comments on COJ, or something else that makes you just think – I LOVE THIS TOO MUCH I’M OVERFLOWING- GUESS IT’S GOT TO COME OUT OF MY EYES!

(Sorry for the extreme number of all-caps in this very long comment?!)

One of my favorite words in spanish is “ahorita,” which technically means “right now” but usually means “whenever I feel like it which may possibly be never.” It’s both maddening and great because it conveys a sense of impatience with another’s impatience, but also can be an attempt to soothe one’s impatience. It’s extremely useful.

Another thing I notice now that I’m bilingual is that this works in reverse, too— there are so many times there is no spanish word for what I am trying to say. There’s no word for “scary.” You can “have fear” or describe a thing as “fearsome” but it just doesn’t compute for me that there isn’t a direct translation sometimes. I find it fascinating to think how our language colors our experiences, and I wonder if my friends in Mexico are braver sometimes because they don’t think of some things being scary in the same way I do.

My husband coined the phrase “Yum-hush” for when a tasty meal is served and everyone is quiet while eating it.

The word for when you are shopping for greeting cards and someone else is in the section you need, so you have to pretend you are interested in other cards until they are finished. ;)

I think about this ALL the time. I wish there were words for these specific kinds of joy:
1. The joy of finding something that you really wanted that you did not think you had. Ex: a Rolaid in your purse. a hair tie in your gym bag.
2. The joy of seeing that white piece of paper on the office building door announcing that the office will be closed for the upcoming holiday.

i often have a word in Korean that I’d love to be able to use in English. If only my non-Korean speaking friends could understand! For example, there is a word for a cunning/sly/clever person that can be used in a positive or negative way. There just isn’t the right equivalent!

Saudade, from portugese: a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves; a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never be had again. It is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, and well-being, which now trigger the senses and make one experience the pain of separation from those joyous sensations. However it acknowledges that to long for the past would detract from the excitement you feel towards the future. Saudade describes both happy and sad at the same time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade