Greetings, writers—
Although I always write these prompts just before they get posted, they sometimes take months to come together.
Take last week’s name tag exercise, for example. I’d had the Joy Williams quote, which was really about God, in my notes file for ages, and then that morning I happened upon the Patricia Lockwood line, which was really about power. But they both referenced name tags, so that became the link, the way I could use them together. Since two name tags didn’t seem like enough, I googled “name tag in fiction” and got the Modern Love column, and thus the prompt was born.
It felt pleasantly serendipitous, and oddly that wasn’t the end of it. Two hours later I was doing some stupid exercise video and the oft-repeated chorus of one of the songs was “Girl, you should wear a name tag.” And then that night I went to a birthday party where one of the guests declared that really, we should all be wearing name tags.
Today’s prompt came about in similarly slow and random fashion. Back in July, when I was playing badminton in “the Middle West” with my brother’s German wife, we were talking about German’s incredible compound words, which range from the concrete and practical (Stachelschwein, literarily “spike pig,” aka porcupine) to the abstract and wonderful (Flughafenbegrussungsfreude: “airport greeting joy,” or the happiness you feel when someone you love meets you at the airport).
I suggested that there must be a German word for the sorrow one feels when one wants a sausage but there are no more sausages in the kitchen—not because I’ve personally experienced it but because I’d seen friends perform a Nick Kroll sketch at a talent show the month prior and was still kind of laughing about it; I think pronouncing “sausages” as “sowsages” is hilarious, sorry.
There’s no compound word for not having your desired sausages, but there is Kummerspeck, which means “grief bacon,” and refers to weight one might gain via comfort eating. There’s also a personal favorite, which translates as “Sunday emptying”:
I actually love Mondays, but for some reason I loathe Sundays.
Yesterday an old New Yorker provided this gem:
A German beekeeper named Johann Thür used the term Nestduftwärmebindung—literally, nest-scent-heat-binding—to convey the heady fug of warmth, humidity, pheromones, and other mysterious signals that is essential to a healthy bees’ nest.
And finally, on my virtual bookshelf at the Multnomah County Library, there is The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, by John Koenig, “a compendium of new words for emotions,” which aims “to shine a light on the fundamental strangeness of being a human being—all the aches, demons, vibes, joys, and urges that are humming in the background of everyday life.”
All right, I think we’ve got compound-word critical mass by now, don’t you?
Two choices for your prompt today:
Make up your own new words for complicated emotions.
Take one of the following feelings that Koenig defines and use it to build a scene/poem/freewrite.
harmonoia
n. an itchy sense of dread when life feels just a hint too peaceful—when everyone seems to get along suspiciously well, with an eerie stillness that makes you want to brace for the inevitable collapse, or burn it down yourself.
From harmony + paranoia. Pronounced “hahr-muh-noi-uh.”
gobo
n. the delirium of having spent all day in an aesthetic frame of mind—watching a beautiful movie, taking photos across the city, getting lost in an art museum—which infuses the world with an aura of meaning, until every crack in the wall becomes a commitment to naturalism, and every rainbow swirling in a puddle feels like a choice.
Short for go-between. In theatrical lighting, a gobo is a layer inserted into a lamp that shapes the pool of light that hits the stage. Pronounced “gob-boh.”
emodox
n. someone whose mood is perpetually out of sync with everyone else around them, prone to feelings of naptime panic, heart-to-heart snark, or dance club pensiveness.
From emotional + dox, not conforming to expected norms. Pronounced “ee-moh-doks.”
leidenfreude
n. a sense of paradoxical relief when something bad happens to you, which temporarily lowers your own expectations for yourself, transforming a faceless protagonist into something of an underdog, who's that much easier to root for.
German Leiden, suffering + Freude, joy. Compare Schadenfreude, joy at the misfortune of others. Pronounced “labyd-n-froi-duh.”
Happy writing!
Emily
P.S. Watch your inboxes for a Zoom invite to another free generative writing class!
Harmonioa is the word that’s been missing from my life all these years. I am actually annoyed that it’s getting spellchecked as I write. I mean - of course it’s a real thing.