beccaelizabeth | Because you can only google when you already know the words (Reply)

Am currently frustrated by trying to look up a half remembered thing I read about twenty years ago. I know which library I was in but it seems unlikely they’d have the same books by now even if randoms were allowed to go dig for things. And I can’t remember if it was a book or a magazine anyway.

I think I remember reading about words that don’t translate easily between languages, specifically words for feelings. Like, there are languages where there are more or less words for love. But I was looking for words for anger.

I remember reading there was a word for the feeling of being angry at an ill person for something they only did because they were ill. It was part of a list of words for anger, and each word seemed to have a different appropriate response. Like, you can’t modify behaviour caused by illness without them getting well again, so it’s a particular sort of frustrated-angry that leaves you only trying to get them medicines or chicken soup or something.

I do not know if this was a real word, or indeed a real thing I read, and I don’t know where I’d start looking for it anyway.

But it seems like it would be a useful word, if it did exist.