I keep coming across people who love words, and ergo languages. The first thing I like to ask them is if they’ve heard about The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, or visited the site. The answer I receive is almost, always in the negative. So, I thought that today would be a good day to share this site, and all that’s about, here.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
I stumbled onto this online dictionary a couple of years back. Every now, and then I go back to it or it’s youtube channel. Randomly pick up a word, and see what it means. I ask myself, if the word used to describe the said emotion is enough to hold everything that emotion carries? The answer to that, almost always, is yes, it does.
What is The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows?
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, from what I know, and’ve used of it, is a collection of words that describe complex emotions. Something that is, and has been missing from natural languages. These words are made-up by John Koenig. And, if you find yourself being a nazi of sorts, and dissing the whole notion of inventing words, then I implore you to spend 3 minutes of your life, and give the below embedded video a watch. What this site, and it’s youtube channel offers is something profound. Imagine, you can use a word like ‘Ambedo’ (see below) to convey what that word holds as meaning. The whole idea of these words, and the associated videos is magical, and extremely addictive to say the least.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows , I think started up in December of 2009, by John Koenig. It’s five(~six) years old now, and it’s still going. The site is updated sporadically, the youtube channel on the other hand has more videos, frequent updates, and thus more words to discover.
Another fact is that as you discover these created words, you tend to relate to some, if not most, of them. At some point, you were feeling those things. At some point, you’ve felt what a particular word describes. I know I’ve.
Ambedo
Here’s a video, of one my favorite words from this online dictionary. And yes, I’ve felt that way before. Ending up at the shore again, and again.
The youtube channel has more content, I did advice to check that out first.
