(With thanks to @TsviBT, @Lucie Philippon, and @johnswentworth for encouragement and feedback, among many.)

Seven entries from a dictionary that will never exist, even though it should. The words in [brackets] show up with some frequency in my thoughts, and I struggle with English’s semantic poverty. Some of them show up in other languages, like Korean or Lojban. Others among them, people I’ve spoken to share in wishing were wider-used words.


[untranslatable 1: word-clogged/interference-silent] (adj): Of a person or their state of mind. Descriptive of the phenomenon where a person has multiple different things to say about a specific topic, or multiple different responses or reactions to a remark an interlocutor has made, only one of which can be taken. To be tongue-tied not out of a lack of things to say, but out of an overabundance of mutually exclusive things to say, all of equal priority, especially when each thing to say would result in following importantly different conversational paths. Often used instead in its natural verb form, which means “to be silent as a result of [word-clog]”. Also used to describe the related phenomenon of being tongue-tied because of having multiple things to say where some of the things a speaker would like to say would provide vital context for others, such that there isn’t even a natural topological ordering that might resolve the [word-clog] with purely linear speech; this is sometimes more specifically called being [untranslatable 1a: word-tangled, loop-silent].


[untranslatable 2: vanilla-obvious/mathproof-step-canonical] (adj, MAT): Characteristic of or inherent to obvious correct choices and canonical courses of action. Natural or obviously indicated on a tactical or strategic level, to the point that making any other choice is a clear risk, even if for some cases of [vanilla-obviousness] a small one. Examples might include the clear correct thing to say, the obvious right gift to give someone, or a safe and desirable fallback option. Canonical, obvious, natural, even boring, but in a good way; vanilla. There is technically a choice to be made but not really, not unless you want something specific and unusual. Math promotes and is full of this; before vanilla, rose flavor in desserts would have been this. Notable for having been a concept independently converged on in [counterhistory] by mathematicians, cooks, military strategists, and operations specialists, all during the same era.

See also: [only-move], when in fact the other options really are vastly worse, not just explicit and possibly-risky choices.


[untranslatable 3: overtread!/follow-steps!] (exc/voc): Like “[farewell!]” and “[hunt’s-luck!/good-skill!]”, one of the “friendly”-class vocatives or exclamations, as contrasted with the other classes: “grumpy” - e.g. “[go-away!]”, “neutral-[phatic]” - e.g. “[acknowledged!]”, and “neutral-[forceful]” - e.g. “[alert!]”. Used when receiving advice that ex ante would be a genuinely good suggestion, but which the speaker of [follow-steps!] has already tried and found wanting, or else taken into account and has very good factual or motivational reasons for not following. Comes with the friendly connotation that the advice-giver has good calibration, has made an otherwise-excellent recommendation, and/or has been virtuous in checking.

See also: [untranslatable 3a: ate-berries!], which instead carries the denotation that the speaker has already followed the advice to completion and reaped the rewards, but cannot or should not do so a second time, e.g. a book recommendation.


[untranslatable 4: whichth?] (int, KOR/JBO): Roughly, “where does this occur in the obvious ordering?”. Applicable to skillrank orderings, temporal orderings, occurrence counts, and preference orderings; the expected answer is an [ordinal-integer] like “third”, or a [bare-integer] like “three” in casual speech. If applied to temporal ordering and not otherwise specified, the most recent occurrence of the reference is taken as the zeroth occurrence, such that “zeroth” is a perfectly fine answer, as are constructions like “negative-first”. Notably, three major [Language] constructions are on display: the productivity of almost all classes of words, that is, most word-classes are semi-open; the fact that like for most [Language] interrogatives, [mu] is a perfectly reasonable answer, e.g.: “[Whichth] lesson do we learn about French history during?/[Mu]??? This is biology class.”; and the fact that for most [Language] interrogatives, the question-word starts the sentence.

See also: other single-syllable question-words which occur in only a few natural or constructed Earth languages, including [untranslatable 4a: how-proportion/prevalence?] and its derived form [untranslatable 4b: how-intensity-weighted-prevalence/many?], [untranslatable 4c: exist-there/possible-that?], [untranslatable 4d: pick-subset?] and its derived form [untranslatable 4e: rank-[indicated]-subset?] which requires a valence (positive or negative) to [indicate] the subset or a quality whose presence gives the [indicated] subset, [untranslatable 4f: binary-logical-choice?] e.g. “Would you like soup [binary-logical-choice?] salad?"/"[And].”, and of course, the [Language]’s most common question-word, [untranslatable 4g: ?is-true/false], for which “true”, “false”, “[mu]”, and “[it’s-complicated]” are the four expected classes of answer in rough descending order of prevalence.


[untranslatable 5: least-victory/one-point-win] (n): An outcome which can just barely be called a success - but can in fact be called a success. A victory which narrowly justifies the cost to achieve it. Connotationally comes with a mood both of ambitious grief, that the outcome was not a [grand-sucess] or even a [lesser-success], and also relief that the venture did not fail to recoup costs or fail altogether, or even come to the sick-feeling tension of a [tie-game] or the dullness of a [bust-game].


[untranslatable 6: lantern-oil, unreal-blood, chi] (n): From cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind, adapted from an older term shared between pre-Enlightenment philosophy and prescientific medicine. A [knowingly-fictitious] mental or internal resource which can or must be consumed for things like greater and extended focus on a task, commitment to a course of action, and the making of difficult but clear choices. Importantly, it has a fairly small maximum capacity; it persists between days; it can be stolen or siphoned away by environments or people; it can be restored to varying extents through physical and mental exercises, explicit meditation, social nutrition, and certain high-quality foods; and it can be spent down to permit [unreal-spoon]-debt and in some cases [ignited] to bring about [battle-short].

Measured in “motes” or “drops”. See also: ego-depletion, [unreal-spoon], volition, willpower.


[untranslatable 7: rabbithole(/trainstation)] (n, ASL): Of a conversation that the speaker has entered in the middle of, the “entry point” or necessary context to understand the remarks being made. The rabbit-hole that those in the conversation have followed down, or the train-station that those in the conversation have boarded at. Usually used in the set phrase “Show me the [rabbithole](, please).” Unlike the common ASL phrase “TRAIN GO STATION SORRY”, connotationally the speaker can expect to be either shown the [rabbithole] or explicitly told that the context is private, or more rarely apologetically informed that the context is too deep or too broad.

Not to be confused with rabbit-hole, the literal entry to a rabbit warren.