Today's Wonder

German is a language that builds words by snapping concepts together like LEGO bricks, a process called compounding. Where English might use a phrase — "a feeling of mild pleasure at someone else's misfortune" — German makes a single word: Schadenfreude. Where English says "speed limit", German says Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung. The grammar rules say you can keep going indefinitely.

The longest word ever used in a real German legal document was Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz — 63 letters — meaning "the law delegating beef labeling supervision duties." It was a real law passed in 1999 and repealed in 2013, at which point the word officially went extinct. Newspapers covered the death of the word as a minor tragedy.

English was actually a compounding language once too — "butterfly" is "butter" + "fly", and "window" comes from Old Norse "vindr-auga", meaning "wind eye." But English stopped compounding aggressively and started borrowing from French and Latin instead after the Norman Conquest in 1066. German kept going, which is why German has one very long word where English needs an entire sentence.

Invent three English compound words for feelings or situations that don't have names yet. Squash two or three real words together and define your new word. Example: "sockdread" — the feeling of opening a drawer of unmatched socks.