The unique joy of learning new words

With all that’s happening in the news, life can feel like an exercise in determining the particular kind of bad we are experiencing. Are we anxious or depressed? Lonely or stressed?

Tim Lomas, a senior lecturer in positive psychology at the University of East London, is engaged in the opposite effort: analyzing all the types of well-being that he can find. Specifically, Lomas is seeking to uncover psychological insights by collecting untranslatable words that describe     1     feelings we don’t have terms for in English. “It’s almost like each one is a window onto a new landscape,” Lomas says. So far, with the help of many     2     he has collected nearly 1,000 in what he calls a “positive lexicography (词典学)”.

People are fascinated with untranslatable words in part because they are     3    : How else could we talk to each other about the guilty pleasure of schadenfreude? But Lomas also sees them as a means of showing us “new possibilities fbr ways of living,” describing them as     4     for people to experience happy phenomena that may previously have been “hidden from them” or to take delight in feelings they couldn’t previously     5    . Consider the Japanese ohanami, a word for gathering with others to appreciate lowers.

Linguists (语言学家) have long argued about how much the language we speak-partly determined by factors like geography and climate—    6     the thoughts we are capable of having or the actions we can take. “The worlds in which different societies live are     7     worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached,” wrote the theorist Edward Sapir.

Studying the words in Lomas’ collection, at the least, is a means of reflecting on ways that we can feel good. When asked for one of his     8    , the psychologist lists the German Femweh, which describes a longing to travel to distant lands, a kind of homesickness for the     9    . Also delightful is the Danish morgenfrisk,     10     the satisfaction one gets from a good night’s sleep, and the Latin otium, highlighting the joy of being in control of one’s own time.

The usual answer to the greeting “How are you?” is generally. “Not too bad.” Why? Because it’s all-purpose. Whatever the conditions, “Not too bad” will get your through. On an average day it     1     a confusing modesty. In good times it implies a decent pessimism (悲观), a kind of unwillingness to express oneself. And when things are rough and annoying, it becomes a heroic     2    , as if everything goes well. Best of all, it gently prevents further questions with all three syllables (音节) equally     3    , because it is — basically — meaningless.

Yet American are small-talk artists. They have to be. This is a wild country. The weakest agreement     4     one person to the next. Without these little, commonly-used phrases and the     5     social contract that they represent to calm people, the streets would be a free-for-all exhibition of disaster.

But that’s the negative     6    . Some of my happiest interactions with other human beings have been glancing moments of small talks. It’s an extraordinary thing. A person stands before you, a complete stranger, and his or her soul can be     7     through the best everyday small talk.

I was out walking the other day when a UPS truck pulled to the side of the road. As the driver leaped from his cab to make a     8    , I heard relaxing music coming out of the truck’s speakers — a kind of familiar and weightless blues music, and it’s my favorite tune. “China Cat Sunflower?” I said to the UPS guy as he rushed back to his truck. He     9     showed a huge smile, “You got it, babe!”

The exchange of feelings, the perfect understanding, the simplest small talk that emerged instantly between us, and, most of all, the     10     “babe” — I was high as a kite for the next 10 minutes after such a pure small talk.