"Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in 'sadness,' or 'joy,' or 'regret.' Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, 'the happiness that attends disaster.' Or: 'the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy.' I'd like to show how 'intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members' connects with 'the hatred of mirrors that begins with middle age.' I'd like to have a word for 'the sadness inspired by failing restaurants' as well as for 'the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.' "
- Jeffrey Eugenides from Middlesex
Great passage that hits the nail on the head. So true that these terse words hardly invoke the feelings they claim to. His more complex versions conjure up much more truth about feelings!
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