epicaricacy

always curious why some words don't really catch on, and some fall out of fashion. a book called "the word museum", offers delightfully archaic equivalents to some more current words -- often more colorful and simply more evocative, stuff that matters to a word dork like me. "runcy," a coarse woman of low morals, became a particular favorite of a dear friend.

"epicaricacy" never seemed to find a home. it's dwarfed in the shadow of "schadenfreud", a word on the lips of everyone from albert speer to lisa simpson. the japanese have a lovely confection:
他人の不幸は蜜の味, tanin no fukou wa mitsu no aji, which translates literally as "others' misfortunes taste of honey".

someone i know was bitten recently by a poisonous spider. he's a man whose character i find questionable, and temper i know to be both venomous and festering. i already got my cosmic smack this week, so feel karmically safe in taking pleasure pondering his painful recovery.