"feelings" vs. "feels"

[Mark Mandel]

This is a blog entry (http://verbs-not-nouns.dreamwidth.org/26365.html),
quoted and linked by permission. Some Google results below.

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The difference between Feelings and Feels

“Feelings are the emotions you have, feels are why you drink.” - Awesome
roommate

Feelings are the definable things. They’re identifiable. You can name them
when they’re happening.

Feels are the big rushes of All The Emotions! Good or bad or both/neither,
it‘s intense. It’s the whump and the drop and the *space and the glee and
excitement and sorrow and the new and the unexpected and the all of
everything. It’s messier, harder to figure out exactly what you’re feeling,
because there‘s so much and it‘s so intimately right there right now and
your logic brain is a little bit flooded with emotional stimulation. Feels
usually need help or distance to puzzle out exactly what‘s happening, to
pull them apart into the separate emotions or back away enough that you can
see the bigness of it all.

It’s a little bit of a silly fannish jargon, but I like having this
concept/word in my toolbox. It means I can start conversations before I
know exactly what’s going on. When things are new and intense and I need
help, I can just announce “I have feels!” and the people I’m talking to
understand that they might need to hold my hand a little, or guide me, or
ask questions, or be patient while I stumble around trying to find the
words to explain what I’m feeling. But it means I’ve started the
conversation and which is a necessary first step to figuring things out.

It’s been particularly useful for figuring out this whole relationship
thing. There have been a lot of feels in the last couple of months.

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Ghits: "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted
some entries very similar to the __ already displayed."

 632     "my feels" site:www.tumblr.com
 752     "my feels" -site:www.tumblr.com meme
 925     "my feels" -site:www.tumblr.com -meme
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2309
-531    "Oh my, feels just like I don't try."
           (From the song "Everybody Loves Me" by Onerepublic)
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1778


Pre-Internet hit:
Brave Horatius did wait and wait, but still those queer feels would n't go
away. Pretty soon I got awful sick. By and by I did have better feels. And
to-day my feels are all right and the mamma is gone a-visiting and I am
going on an exploration trip.
-- Philip Gengembre Hubert. The Story of Opal: The journal of an
understanding heart. The Atlantic Monthly: March, 1920, p. 295
http://tinyurl.com/9nupzsg


Mark Mandel

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org