

The bird market in Hong Kong.
We were working in small groups during class yesterday, and my group got off topic and started discussing language. I said that I like when I learn a word in another language that expresses something that cannot be expressed in one word in our own language, and this guy immediately exclaimed, Yeah, like there needs to be a word for ‘becoming something you never wanted to become.’ This had clearly been eating at him. Is there a word for this? (I asked P this, and he suggested mistake.) The conversation made me think that a fun game for long car rides would be to come up with things we need words for. It also made me think about the practicality of poetry.

4 comments
Comments feed for this article
November 9, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Claire
cool! what about misactualizing?
November 9, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Andrea
I was thinking you might have an answer for that, Claire. Thanks!
November 16, 2007 at 10:54 am
Chris B
Hmmm . . . self-annihilationist or self-iconoclastification?
November 17, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Brain
Hey! I know that guy, the one who had that question!
I am talking to my friend Mel (she & I are actually the same person) and she said, “There should be a word for someone who tries to get themselves mentioned in other people’s blogs so that they can post an entry in their own blog about that reference.” (paraphrased)
I do like autoiconoclastification…izing…ness.