Word Fugitives
Atlantic, The, July, 2003 by Barbara Wallraff
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In March we requested a word for a "tendency to make more mistakes ... if a very critical person is watching." Along with aspiring words, a flood of descriptions of what it's like to have this affliction poured in. For instance, Javan Kienzle, of Birmingham, Michigan, wrote, "It is near impossible for me to work in the kitchen if anyone else is in there—this from my childhood when my mother always commented on the way I did things.
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If anyone watches me work, I inevitably end up cutting myself, burning myself, dropping something, or breaking something." Peter Morris, of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, wrote, "I often find myself unable to sign my own name when being stared at by an incommunicative bank teller or bureaucrat." Two readers reported that according to They Have a Word for It , by Howard Rheingold, in German fisselig has the meaning wanted. A few others pointed ...
