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John Koenig: What If There Were A Word For Every Emotion In The World?

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Decoding Our Emotions.

About John Koenig's TED Talk

When we can't describe how we're feeling, we say we "have no words." But in his made-up dictionary, writer John Koenig has invented words to describe our most abstract and ephemeral emotions.

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About John Koenig

John Koenig is the founder and author of an online dictionary of made-up words called The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows, which is also a YouTube series. His dictionary aims to fill the gaps in the English language with terms to describe new emotions. He is currently working on a print version.

Koenig attended Macalester College in his home state of Minnesota. He currently lives in Amsterdam with his wife.

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