emotional vocabulary

[callunav]

To anyone who cares to answer:

What is the difference between 'sad' and 'unhappy' to you?

Comments

[julian]

Sad is a sustained thing, whereas one is unhappy about a specific event.

(Though sadness can have a specific cause.)

[matrixmann]

"Unhappy" in its literaly meaning implies "just not happy", while "sad" directly says that someone isn't in a good mood or upset.

[pameladean]

I suspect this is highly idiosyncratic. (So, probably, do you.) In my lexicon, sadness is a long-term, settled state and it's not much fun but it isn't, I don't know, ITCHY the way unhappiness is. Unhappiness is active and irritating and it requires action; it's often directed at things that could be changed. Sadness is about things that can't. For example, I'm very sad in the wake of the happy announcement that a lot of John M. Ford's work will be reprinted, because the excellent article announcing it really understood him and reminded me that he's still gone and isn't coming back. But I'm unhappy about some mistakes I've made, which need to be rectified, but it's tricky; or about some issues with the house, ditto.

P.

[redbird]

Sad feels more ongoing and a bit less energetic--if I had the emotion without any obvious-to-me cause I would probably use "sad."

But this also feels like one of those places where English has a larger vocabulary than we need, so synonyms or almost-synonyms are lying around.

[practicalvisionary]

Sadness feels like it's more active, I'm being said, I'm expressing the feeling, I'm crying. Unhappiness feels more passive, it's something that's happening to me, it's a lack of hapiness.

[xyzzysqrl]

I stopped in to say this, but this is phrased better than I'd have put it. Unhappy is a passive generalized state, Sad is specific and active.