{"id":535,"date":"2006-01-10T10:07:53","date_gmt":"2006-01-10T18:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/archives\/2006\/01\/10\/i-need-the-word-for\/"},"modified":"2006-01-10T10:07:53","modified_gmt":"2006-01-10T18:07:53","slug":"i-need-the-word-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/01\/10\/i-need-the-word-for","title":{"rendered":"I need the word for\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

While lying abed this morn\u00ading, a ques\u00adtion popped into my mind: \u201cYou know how some\u00adtimes things go sour abrupt\u00adly and you have this detached sense of watch\u00ading your life col\u00adlapse in slow motion? What\u2019s the fam\u00adi\u00adly-friend\u00adly word for that?\u201d<\/p>\n

There are over 500,000 words in the Eng\u00adlish lan\u00adguage, and most of us have nev\u00ader heard 80% of them. Take didap\u00adper<\/a>, for exam\u00adple. It\u2019s a real word (a small grebe<\/a> as it turns out), but you\u2019ve like\u00adly nev\u00ader even heard it. You are no doubt an artic\u00adu\u00adlate speak\u00ader with a wide-rang\u00ading vocab\u00adu\u00adlary, and yet you could\u00adn\u2019t pick a didap\u00adper out of a line\u00adup if it mugged you. Grebe is just five let\u00adters and yet if I played it in Scrab\u00adble you\u2019d make me whip out a dic\u00adtio\u00adnary to prove it was real.<\/p>\n

There are hun\u00addreds of thou\u00adsands of words just like that. There must be one for this! Every\u00adone I\u2019ve asked knows exact\u00adly the feel\u00ading I\u2019m describ\u00ading, and yet they can\u2019t think of a polite name for it.<\/p>\n

In case you\u2019re still con\u00adfused about that feel\u00ading, here are some oth\u00ader descrip\u00adtions:<\/p>\n