At a loss for words? Join the Bureau of Linguistical Reality

By S.H. | SAN FRANCISCO

CASAPERDIDA, noun: A feeling of anxiety that your house will be lost as a result of a torrential storm or event related to climate change. You might say, for instance, “I am unable to sleep at night as I am overwhelmed by a nagging sense of casaperdida.” This was an example provided by the Florida resident who submitted the word to The Bureau of Linguistical Reality (BLR). The word was approved and thus “created”.

Founded in 2014 by Heidi Quante and Alicia Escott, the BLR is a participatory dictionary and conceptual art project. The artists, who are based in San Francisco, see it as addressing what they consider an absence of language—“a linguistical void”—that accurately reflects the modern world. In their mission statement, they write that: “Our species (Homo Sapiens) is experiencing a collective ‘loss of words’ as our lexicon fails to represent the emotions and experiences we are undergoing as our habitat (earth) rapidly changes due to climate change and other unprecedented events.” They invite submissions on their website, and sometimes ask contributors to come up with a word for an unnamed concept.