The Unglish Dictionary
Introduction
In 2015, I started working at “the world’s leading brand consultancy,” Interbrand. A large part of my job at Interbrand was the creative end of brand naming. Someone asks, “what’s a metaphor for caring, but ALSO a metaphor for killing?” and I spend a hundred hours of my life trying to answer that question.
Because I spent much of my time trying to come up with specific words, I spent a lot of time investigating the niches that the only language I speak, English, doesn’t precisely cover. Why is there no word for that thing where you strum your lips, making a “wibble wibble wibble” noise, that we do to make little kids laugh? Or for that thing where you’re walking down the hall towards someone else, and you keep sidestepping into each others’ way by accident?
These concepts—these definitions without words—became the root of a creative project, hosted mainly on Twitter, that I called the Undictionary. Where a dictionary was a list of words and their meanings, the undictionary was a list of meanings without words.
Or, to put it in the form:
[n] DICTIONARY: A compendium of words that presents their meanings.[n] UNDICTIONARY: A compendium of meanings and withholds their words.Now, I think of it a little differently: not as a book that isn’t a dictionary, but rather a dictionary that isn’t English.
[n] GIBBERISH: Language without meaning.[n] UNGLISH: Meaning without language.In the nearly ten years since I began this project, I’ve written hundreds of definitions, and dozens of stories that made use of those definitions. A few of my favorites are below.
[v] Strum one's lips while humming, esp. towards a young child.[v] Repeatedly mirror one another's motions in a mutual attempt to avoid collision.[v] Smile and laugh because you did not hear or understand what was said.[v] Solve a problem yourself immediately after asking for help.[adj] Responsible for, but having no authority over.[v] Wait for another occupant to exit their stall and leave before you do.[v] Go in for a hug when they're going in for a handshake.[v] Want to want.[v] Want not to want.[n] Thought you can't remember, but can remember having.[v] Discover that something you thought you knew was false.[v] Not know, but know how to find out.◴◬◰◨◪◧ [adj] Attracted mainly to masculine people and traits. c.f. Gay, Straight◲◭◮◐ [adj] Attracted mainly to feminine people and traits. ANT: ◴◬◰◨◪◧◔▣◐◴◨ [adj] Attracted equally to masculine and feminine people and traits.[n] Pair of verbs with inverse subjects and objects. C.F.: Synonym, AntonymDodge <—> Miss
Lead <—> Follow
Enter <—> Envelop
Chase <—> Flee
[n] Non-synonyms with homonymous antonyms.dark : light :: light : heavy
dark ¡! heavy
left : right :: right : wrong
left ¡! wrong
orange : blue :: blue : joyful
orange ¡! joyful
◵▣◧ [v] Unconsciously replace aspects of your identity with oft-repeated falsehoods.By the time they finally tracked him down, they were all old men. He'd taken on the identity of a char mechanic, a man named Arnold Gray, for almost thirty years. So long had been his flight, so complete his paranoia, and so porous and permeable his mind, that he'd ◵▣◧ed practically everything about his old life with the life of Gray.
After an hour of interrogation, they believed that he truly had forgotten John Pellhour, much less that he was him. So they left Arnold Gray alive, and had no qualms reporting that the man they'd been sent to hunt no longer lived.
Arnold may have been a fabrication, but he wasn't fabricated yesterday. He wondered about these strange hard men, and the feelings they elicited inside his usually peaceful heart. The more he wondered, the more he remembered - he found first bits, then pieces of Pellhour inside himself. And once you find yourself, it's very, very hard to lose it again.
These hunters more than missed their quarry. They ended Arnold Gray, an innocent, because their meddling brought John Pellhour back.
[n] Cryptographic code in which all characters are replaced with a character a set distance away on a keyboard, originally developed as a way to keep passwords updated.]m\ Vpfr om ejovj s;; vjstsvyrtd str tr[;svrf eoyj s vjstsvyrt s dry fodysmvr sesu pm s lrunpstf. ptohoms;;u frbr;p[rf sd s esu yp lrr[ [sddeptfd i[fsyrf/ Bstosmyd rcody gpt WERTYU. SMDO. smf pyjrt vp,,pm lrunpstf gpt,syd. sd er;; sd ;rgy=djogyomh smf tohjy=djogyomh bstosmyd. smf bstosmyd pg mi,nrt pg lrud djogyrf/
◪◑◶◴◷◈ [v] Mistake another's thoughts or feelings for your own.As she enters to thunderous applause, she is already channeling into the audience. Those in the front row ◪◑◶◴◷◈ the rush of her adrenaline. Those in the next ◪◑◶◴◷◈ her bony limbs (now, in some way, their limbs) draping themselves across the velvet couch. The entire auditorium ◪◑◶◴◷◈ as their quivering fingers open the black box and withdraw the hypodermic, the nick as it slides into their arm, the unnatural fullness of fluid under flesh. Shadows twist and shiver, phosphene phantoms materialize, and they descend together past coherence and into a shared subconscious.
As she ◪◑◶◴◷◈s a thousand spectators' wonder, awe, and respect, their joy fills up the emptiness in her, so that, for a time, even she cannot tell the difference.
◷◬◩◎◴ [n] Light carrying a specific image.
ANT: ShadowLynn and I wander slowly, only a little above the speed of light, along the shattered highway. When we reach the bottom of the hill, we turn and watch our ◷◬◩◎◴ recede back into the distance towards the cabin.
Grampa says that back before the slowdown, railless trains used to run down that highway one car at a time, as fast as 80 or 100 lightspeeds — and they could see where they were going, because light wasn't so thick back then. He says they used to have little machines that ran on light and could tell you anything. He says you used to be able to tell where you were, compared to other people.
I know right where I am. Lynn and I climb the hill and run around the crest like little kids, finding the sweet spots where we can see our own ◷◬◩◎◴ to the right as we run clockwise, or where we can drink up each other's shadows as we circle in each other's wakes. We run down the hill together, as fast as we can, and when we look back we can see the ◷◬◩◎◴s of us playing on the hilltop.
Gramma says, where you are is just where you were after where you've been. And me and Lynn, as we lay on the grass under the ◷◬◩◎◴ of yesterday's sun, we know just where we've been.
◨◬◴ [n] Person you imagine or dream about, in relation to the real person they represent.When our marriage soured, the nightmares got worse. Trips to the marriage counselor were, for me, followed by trips to the hypnotherapist.
While the one taught us to delve into one another, the latter taught me to spelunk into my own subconscious, to control the entire world I occupied one-third of the time. Both were hard, but it was easier for me to shape my husband's ◨◬◴ while I was asleep, than to shape my waking self to match the man he really was. I built a better him from figments and fragments of wish and memory.
Was I cheating on him? Or was it masturbatory, as he accused, for me to choose his ◨◬◴ over him? What difference does it make, if I left him for another man, or myself, or himself? The point is, I've finally found someone who loves me the way I am, and nothing is more important than that.
◶◑◬◵◉◈ [v] Enter a space, especially a room or browser window, and instantly forget why you came.It's finally time to begin. The reddish darkness presses tight against you, the muffled soundscape beyond the capsule has changed. For the first time in a long time, you feel cramped, and hungry. You steel yourself, redoubled in your purpose, ready to begin the journey you were sent for.
But as the cold air touches your feet, as though for the first time, the shock of it rocks you, shaking loose the ideas you've been brooding on for three quarters of a year. You are squeezed, crushed, and the ideas are squeezed out of you, replaced by shock, fear, and confusion as you forget what you’d expected. Sudden light sears your eyes, harsh sounds blast sensitive ears, and your soft little scrambled brain doesn't have room for anything else, not anymore, not for a while yet.
You ◶◑◬◵◉◈ the delivery ward, senses reeling, and your final conscious act, as the last spark of memory winks out, is to start to scream.
[v] Behold another’s creative work, thereby completing a process of creative synthesis.Thanks for reading.