emotional vocabulary

[callunav]

To anyone who cares to answer:

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

Comments

[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.