Linguistics Minutes

One of my favorite quotes:

Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointments of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with the "hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar."
[Jeffrey Eugenides, from Middlesex ]

I think about this quote often, actually--when I feel any of the emotions Eugenides describes, yes, but also when I experience others that I think belong on the list.

Like, the amusement inherent in the arguments of two scientists at the same conference.

The clean smile you give to someone who truly understands you.

The exhaustion that comes from pretending you are something you are not.

The mortification that proceeds the realization you've been talking from your ass.

The frustration that arises when someone continues to ruin your speculative conversations with a smart phone and a data plan.

That feeling when you turn over in the night and someone places his hand on your side.

The first breath after 5 PM on a Friday.

The sudden sad knowledge that nothing will ever be this way again, that knowledge that comes at the end of things.