Charming description of Liesl Schillinger’s book Wordbirds: An Irreverent Lexicon for the 21st Century in the New York Times this week, illustrated by Elizabeth Zechel. When confronted by some mind-freezing dilemma, did you ever say, “there oughtta be a word for that?” Well, maybe there is, in her collection of 200. Her tumblr blog is updated weekly, too.Some of her favorites are collected in the book.
Here are a couple of gems with Schillinger’s definitions:
- Icyclist: a person who bikes in the dead of winter
- Occuplaytion: the fanciful jobs invented for heroines of Hollywood romantic comedies
- Nagivator: a person constantly giving directions to the car’s driver
- Cancellelation: the joy you feel when you cancel something you didn’t want to do in the first place
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