Words

Sabrina Herrmann

I didn’t like animals until I started naming them. The intimate knowledge of a word, a string of syllables, made everything safe.

When I was 10 I wrote a dictionary of words I thought we needed words that didn’t exist. Huggle. Hattitude. Scrittle.

What do you write about when you know nothing? What do you call the feeling when you’re on the rollercoaster and your stomach drops? Ruvious. And getting ice cream at the carnival? Fantabulous.

Last week I learned that the Hawaiian alphabet only has 12 letters, and the ancient Greeks had no word for the color blue.

Are 12 letters enough? And how did the Greeks describe the sky?

We should have words for everything so we don’t feel alone. We need specific words for the kinds of sad, and even more for the kinds of happy.

I want to tell you how I feel and I want to be precise.

Because “good” isn’t enough, and few understand what I mean when I say, I feel like lightning.

39