How a New Word Can Show You Realities You Never Imagined

I’m fascinated with words. . . and totally promiscuous about it.

Words in English, words in other languages, intellectual words, poetic words, slang and pop culture words, technical words, bureaucratic words, intimate words, public life words, serious words, funny words, made-up words.

Recently, I was talking with a neighbor — standing in the middle of the street, which is where most of our conversations seem to begin.

It was a bright sunny day in late March, a welcome break from the long spell of cold and rain we’ve been living with in California this year, including those dramatic atmospheric rivers (new word) that have dumped so much water on us and led to unprecedented flooding.

I started with the typical small-talk opener of these meteorologically challenging times: “Aren’t you sick and tired of all this cold wet weather and how it’s been cooping us up inside so much?”

I tossed out the new word Oregonification (which refers to our Mediterranean climate changing to that of Oregon and the Northwest, and is a pun on Californication, a word that was invented some years ago to refer to Californians spilling out into neighboring states).

To my utter amazement, he replied: “No, my wife and I have really been enjoying that snug, close to the hearth, quiet, home-centered winter feeling of being all safe inside while it’s cold and gray and storming outside. We like that better than the bright sunlight.”

WHAT?? ARE YOU NUTS??

Being a certified sun, warm weather and out-of-doors devotee, I couldn’t begin to identify with the concept. To me, gray-wet-cold weather is synonymous with seasonal affective disorder (was once a new word)— to being glum, down, listless and out of sorts.

“Do you know the Danish word hygge?” my friend asked. It was an utterly new word to me. I couldn’t even get my tongue around how to pronounce it — hew-guh is as close as I could get.

“It refers to the warm glow of candlelight and a fire in the fireplace,” he explained. “It means something like coziness, comfort, the pleasure of snuggling indoors on a cold evening wrapped in a warm blanket, sipping warm cider or cocoa, relaxing in the peaceful company of your family and friends.”

This led to a long discussion (right there in the middle of the street) about cultural and geographic weather sensibilities, and how we humans have learned to adapt to and to eventually love the climates to which we’ve become habituated.

My friend’s antecedents are Nordic, his upbringing was in western Pennsylvania — a place of severe winters. His wife is from northern Germany, and also grew up with a climate that was cold and grey for many months of the year. Being warm and cozy inside must surely be a source of pleasure in those environments.

Though I was still in a state of stunned disbelief, my curiosity had been peaked, and I started to research this strange (to me) concept of hygge.

It seems to have made its appearance in the American lexicon some time after 2017, in a New York Times best-selling book by a Danish happiness researcher named Meik Wiking. One of his central points is that the practice and enjoyment of hygge during the long bleak Nordic winters has been a useful survival strategy for sustaining happiness.

Neuroscience ties the hygge form of happiness to raising the levels of the feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin, which gets depleted by lack of sunshine. So, yes, it makes sense that a culture shaped by those kinds of winters would come to attach great emotional value to the cozy comfort in your home experience of the cold months of winter.

Since this is America, of course, it didn’t take long for the situationally sensible practice of snuggling up at home with your loved ones when it’s cold outside to be transformed into a marketable hygge lifestyle brand. It’s amazing how our culture of hyper-capitalism can turn any idea into a product you can sell!

So there came to be all sorts of blankets, pillows, warm socks, slippers, scented candles, relaxing teas, mugs, board games, fireplace tools and other home decor or warm-drinks-at-night doodads for sale to promote hygge in your life.

The irony is that the concept expressed through that Danish word hygge — which has to do with people learning to be less stressed by the winter and finding contentment in simple human company at home — seems to have become in this culture one more consumption-based aspiration to pursue.

I could be cynical, and conclude that the concept of hygge is another hyped up and short-lived cultural fad that promises in vain to transform our harried frenetic culture. Or I could appreciate that I’ve just learned something significant about cultural differences based on climate adaptation.

Or just ponder the fact the English word hug is etymologically related to Danish hygga, and that both go back to an Old Norse word hugga, that meant “comfort”.

See how much of a mental journey a single new word can take you on?

All new words we encounter can open up the doors of our perception to new concepts and understandings, and pique our curiosity to know more.

The capacity to create words and communicate through words is one of the perks of that homo sapiens brain of ours. The more new words come our way, the more our brains are nourished. Talk about serotonin lift!

This seems self-evident.

Observe any child first acquiring language, and how each new word grasped is like a bright new shiny plaything to bounce around and take delight in as the capacity for comprehension grows.

Why in the world should adults not continuously enjoy that same delight?

Got any favorite new words of your own to share?

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In Karine’s Musings on This and That I write on personal experience, life lessons, wisdom, culture, language, philosophy, society, history, and whatever else crosses my mind. For my other online articles, check me out at All Things Examined, Political Engagement, The Grief and Renewal Chronicles or elsewhere on Medium. You can read my writer’s philosophy in The Idea Factory. You’re welcome to share your comments below the posts or to write me at [email protected].