Every now and then, I say "wuckles" next to a person who I am work trialing, or who for some other reason cares about not looking dumb in front of me. 

They casually-but-frantically google "wuckles" in the background to try to figure out what I meant. The only google result for "wuckles" is an urban dictionary response which is not what I meant by it, and it's pretty clear from context it's not what I meant by it. They are confused.

This post is for the third such person, should they appear one day.

Wuckles (usually pronounced "Wuckles!") is an exclamation I make. For a long time, I didn't really know what it meant, I just knew a wuckles when I saw one. 

Eventually, I saw a LessWrong quick take that made me really want a "wuckles" react, and then I was kinda confused why I needed a wuckles react, instead of any of our existing epistemic reacts. This forced me to sus out "what makes something a wuckles?"

"Wuckles" means "I am surprised and confused, and, it's kinda interesting that I'm surprised and confused."

Sometimes, you have a pleasant wuckles. 

You are walking down the street and a man in a suit appears from an alleyway leading a parade of dwarfs juggling balloons in a heavily corporate neighborhood where you wouldn't normally expect that.

Why is there a bunch of circus dwarfs? Why are they led by a man in a suit? I don't know. But it's delightful. 

Wuckles!

Sometimes, you have an unpleasant wuckles. 

Sometimes, a bureaucracy decides to make me do something ridiculous, and it not only is annoying and unpleasant but it is very weird. Why would the insurance company be motivated to find out this weird obscure fact about me? Why are they making it my problem?

Wuckles!

Sometimes, you have a mild wuckles.

A package has arrived for me at Lighthaven. I do not remember ordering any packages to Lighthaven. Why is this happening? Idk. It's probably not a big deal. But, wuckles.

Sometimes, you aren't even sure what kind of wuckles you have.

Sam Altman has been... fired from OpenAI? Is that good? Is that bad? I don't know! Why is it happening? I don't know! What implications does this have for the AI geopolitical landscape? I don't know. 

WUCKLES!??

Wuckles vs Huckles vs Fuckles

The etymology of "wuckles" is that, several years ago, I want to swear but be adorable instead of mean, and I started saying "fuckles!". Fuckles is a word for when you are upset but it is kinda delightful.

But then, sometimes I wasn't upset. But I wanted sort of the vibe of "Fuckles" but... idk, like, if you were gonna say "wha?" because you were a bit confused. But, something about it felt silly enough to warrant adding an 'uckles' to the end of it.

Meanwhile, for extremely mild wuckles, I sometimes say "huckles" which is might like I wanted to say "huh" but something felt interesting about the huh and I wanted to draw extra attention to it. 

You can mix-and-match uckles with other front-syllables that fit whatever vibe you are into. 

Wuckles, the missing epistemic emotion

But, Wuckles has had some Staying Power that fuckles and huckles have not, because I think it actually articulated an important void in the mix of epistemic-emotions. Yeah, in some sense it's just "surprise and confusion" but it has a flavor that is sort of unique to itself once you get the knack for seeing it. My ability to express my internal state would be impoverished without "wuckles" in my inventory.