Faux Word of the Day: annexiety

January 25, 2011 Faux Word of the Day: annexiety

Welcome to the fifth installment of Faux Word of the Day!

To recap, you’ve already learned (and memorized and utilized and enjoyed, I hope) punintentional, fauxjectivity, gendrification, and NetFlixtion.  And today, if you’ll let me, I’d like to add annexiety to your repertoire.

Yes, this will be on the exam.

annexiety (an-eks-zahy-i-tee)
noun

a sudden overwhelming but unreasonable feeling of distress or uneasiness caused by a fear of danger or misfortune that could have, but failed to actually occur; anxiety after the fact

Basically, when anxiety unnecessarily takes over (annexes) your emotional state without an objective or tangible cause.

Annex + Anxiety = Annexity.

For example: “I couldn’t shake the feeling of annexiety this morning after I almost did a face-plant on the sidewalk while running to catch the bus.  Ugh.  That would have been terrible.”

Even though I have a vested interest in brute forcing my FWOD into your vocabulary, I wouldn’t be completely surprised if the Germans already have a word for this emotional state.

We know that schadenfreude is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others, but perhaps they also have a word that perfectly addresses unreasonable internal suffering derived from that same individual’s barely-missed-misfortune?

Some real-life examples of annexiety include:

1. The bus example (see above)
2. Almost spilling red wine on white carpet
3. Almost falling down the escalator at the Virginia Square metro
4. Almost dropping your new smartphone outside of Penn Station
5. Almost choking on a carrot while being supervised by your initially-dismissive brother
6. Almost calling someone the wrong name (especially in a crucial moment)
7. Almost addressing/sending a chat message or email to the incorrect person
8. Almost causing an enormous car accident
9. Almost getting a fishing hook in the eye
10. [THINK OF AN EXAMPLE FROM YOUR OWN LIFE!]

I’m a little concerned that my last two FWOTD’s are both anxiety-related (see: NetFlixtion), but I’m going to assume this is nothing to get anxious about.

Right?

Or is it?

It is, isn’t it?

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