In Tove Jansson’s Moominland, dictionaries are authoritative powers that verge on the oppressive Bierce and Flaubert cock a snook at such power. Elsewhere John Algeo, emeritus professor of English at the University of Georgia, suggests that the Bible and some dictionaries command a similar reverence and an implied infallibility, coining the word lexicographidolatory for the concept. In Jonathon Green’s excellent Chasing the Sun: Dictionary Makers and the Dictionaries They Made, scholar Alain Rey is quoted on this point: dictionaries and encyclopedias, he notes, are often privileged with representing “an illusion of totality, of an immobile order of things, of harmony”. To consult an actual dictionary is generally to turn to “established” or shared facts. The fun and sprezzatura of these books come in approaching them as a kind of gag-tombola that also subverts the dictionary form. In Jacques Barzun’s translation we find entries such as “Exasperation – always at its height” and “Delft – more swank than china”. This dictionary, made up of various sketches and asides found in Flaubert’s notes and correspondence, harries the cliches of custom and behaviour as well as the notion that any source of information can be unassailable. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.” This echoes Flaubert’s The Dictionary of Received Ideas, a short compendium skewering guides to social etiquette.
The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust”, and “man n. Here we find entries such as: “achievement n. Originally published in 1906 under the title The Cynic’s Word Book, it transforms conventional definitions to satirise the notion of accepted and acceptable language. This mention of demons will perhaps remind browsers of another fictional dictionary (fictionary, n.?), the roguish Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce.
On the site Koenig explains that his “mission is to capture the aches, demons, vibes, joys and urges that roam the wilderness of the psychological interior”. The dictionary’s popularity resides in its definitions directly acknowledging that sometimes language has an inadequate precision when it comes to recounting or describing familiar shared experiences.Īmbrose Bierce transformed conventional definitions. It also prompts readers to submit their own words and definitions. Koenig’s project is by turns stirring and playful, providing lexical and linguistic plugs for the lacunae of everyday expression. Taking shape first as an online index, this viral dictionary of fabricated words now has a dedicated YouTube channel on which Koenig narrates definitions-cum-prose-poems over short films and it will soon also appear in an expanded print incarnation from Simon & Schuster. the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist”. the desire to care less about things” and “vemödalen n. In fact “sonder ( n.)” is the creation of US writer John Koenig and is just one of many entries in his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.
Sonder and its definition often appear stripped of any attribution. It is the name of a swish San Francisco startup travel agency, as well as the title of English prog-metal band Tesseract’s 2017 album – its track “Luminary” features lyrics that sonder-ponder: “Are you alone, locked inside / The prison of your head?” Sonder is also a brand of craft beer in Ohio: “Just like every person has a unique story, so does every beer.” With its intimation of a specific mode of apprehension and self-scrutiny, sonder and its definition are clearly beginning to take hold in the public imagination. The word is a popular choice for text-based tattoos. It is the other sonder that bobs up in internet listicles such as 25 Words Every Traveller Should Have in Their Vocabulary and 32 of the Most Beautiful Words in the English Language.
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