My word of the day came from a surprising source: today's Metro.
I can't say how often someone has expressed amazement over the number of different words the Inuit have for 'snow', pick another language, please. The Metro was no different, and so by the time I got to the bit about the snow, yawn, my interest in the article was winding down, my appreciation of its originality diminishing quickly. Just as my eyes were flicking away, I was drawn back in...
Yugen. It's more than a word: it is a principle, a philosophy. In short, it is described as the beauty of suggestion. Yugen is the response to a sensibility beyond the range of words: it values the power to evoke, rather that the ability to state directly.
The word derives from the sign [yu], meaning deep, dark, clouded, barely visible and [gen], a term originally describing the deep, dark, calm colour of the universe, with reference to the taoistic conception of truth.
Dude, that's deep.
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