words

Squeeglee – a missing emotion word in English for when you experience something that’s cute

September 5, 2024
The cat photo is of Jianjian and was taken by jianjianmama
A new word for an emotion that, very oddly, previously had no word in English:Squeeglee - "the emotion people experience when perceiving something as cute, such as a baby or puppy."Noun: "When a cat wears a hat, it fills me with squeeglee."Verb: "I squeeglee that kitten."This word is the winner of a poll where I proposed four ideas for what to call this emotion of finding something (non-sexually) cute. This was first written on August 31, 2024, and first appeared on my website on Septemb...
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Eschew Obscure Words

August 18, 2011
Intelligent people often like to use intelligent sounding words. Words like "nonplused", "loquacious" and "limerance" spice up writing and conversation, add beauty to language, and can seem to give the speaker an aura of sophistication. Even those who don't consciously cultivate having a large vocabulary may start to use such words automatically, having read them sufficiently many times in books or articles. Unfortunately, obscure words have a tendency to interfere with communication. Sometim...
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