Sonder caught on in a way that none of the others have. I defined a word called “sonder,” the awareness that everyone around you is the main character of their own story, but to you they’re just extras in the background. You’re not going to find these words in any other dictionary.” But over the years occurred to me. Initially I’d say, “Well, no, of course they’re not real. I’m often asked if these words are real that’s been the dominant question I have gotten from readers. “Tiris” is derived from Tír na nÓg, which in Irish folklore is the land of everlasting youth and beauty. I called it “tiris,” which is the awareness of the impermanence of absolutely everything, the comfort of that, and also how disturbing that thought can be. I’m going to try to define my own take on transience.” That’s the last definition in the book. There are lots of synonyms that are redundant, so sometimes I decide, “You know what? It’s worth it. Sometimes the work is already done, but language is limitless. There’s a Japanese word, mono no aware, which is a sense of the transience of things and how beautiful that can be, or ubuntu, which means “I am because we are.” That's a universal concept. There frequently is because a lot of languages around the world are really rich in their vocabularies. The first step in my process when I come up with a feeling is to try to make sure that there isn’t already a word for it. How do you make sure the word you create doesn’t already exist? I can get pretty deep into the wordplay nerdery. The way it’s pronounced (tick lock) refers to the word as well. That one is actually an acronym for “the insatiable crocodile hunts what’s left of Captain Hook,” a reference to Peter Pan. I have another definition, “tichloch,” which is the feeling that you don’t know how much time you have left on this earth. But often, that’s not quite enough, and I have to get creative in other ways. Once I find a hook like that, I can then dive into real dictionaries in those languages and try to piece something together in a creative way. I found the Latin root immerens, which means undeserving, and expanded it from there to “immerensis”. As hard as you may try to wrap your mind around the idea, it’s impossible to understand. For example, “immerensis,” which is the feeling that you don’t understand why someone loves you. You can get a sense of how many ways there are to express things in language. The advantage there is that they have translations of a ton of words in different languages: Icelandic, Finnish, and Greek-some of my favorites- and a ton of other languages from around the world. Often, it starts with a Wiktionary, the dictionary that’s run by the Wikimedia Foundation. It’s just a matter of diving into the research and looking for something that speaks to me, a hook. How do you go about coming up with a new word? An edited version of the conversation follows. Koenig shares a few of his original definitions, as well as the lessons he has learned in his pursuit to express in words the metaphysical human experience, which remains largely undefined. In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Raju Narisetti chats with John Koenig, author of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (Simon & Schuster, November 2021), about words and the power we give to them.
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