استبلح (Istablaha) (verb; form X)– to take on the appearance of something that is blah; to become blah.

One of the things I enjoy about Arabic is that its rigid grammatical structure allows you to create words that don’t exist, but that are perfectly intelligible. This is a great help when you’re taking a test and don’t know the exact word you need, but know of one that’s close to it.

The reason I bring this up is that I just invented the above word to describe my mood lately.

Every year, shortly after the Christmas/New Year holiday conflagration, ennui sets in. It’s that feeling of everything being in shades of gray, feeling unmotivated, unenthusiastic, and as though you can’t enjoy anything.

It’s like being in Pleasantville, only without everything starting to turn to color over the course of the movie.

The term I usually use for this feeling is blah, and if it were an Arabic verb, I would, at this point, be realizing that, without noticing, over the past few days I have gone through the process of istiblaah (noun) — taking on the appearance of something blah; to become blah.

I’ve been trying to formulate a post that isn’t based on some news story or the most recent episode of Project Runway (which Shin beat me to, not that I found this week’s episode … or this season … that exciting anyway). Instead, I’ve been tweaking my new blog theme to ithin an inch of its life (if you’re reading this via an RSS reader, visit the actual site to see it), and wondering occasionally if another cup of coffee will cause me to vibrate off into another universe.

It’s not that I don’t have anything to do … the nonstop chime of a new forwarded message from my boss arriving in my inbox has seen to that … it’s just that it’s not that interesting or exciting. I’m not feeling it, dammit. It says something that the task I am looking forward to most today is going to the CVS across the street and purchasing anti-allergen eye drops. (It’s cedar season here in central Texas, and I am determined not to succumb once again to months of agony.)

So, I entertained myself by creating a new verb in Arabic, which you can now use to dazzle your friends. (It doesn’t quite work as a present tense verb, since it would connote “I am now going through the process of becoming blah.”)

استبلاح istiblaah (the process of becoming blah); with the definite article (“the istiblaah”), it becomes الاستبلاح al-istiblaah.

استبلح istablaha (to become blah; also: he became blah)
استبلحت istablahat (she became blah); istiblahtu (I became blah)
استبلحت istablahta (you (m.) became blah)
استبلحت istablahti (you (f.) became blah)
استبلحنا istablahna (we became blah)

And now you know …

Tags: Arabic - عربي, bla, grammar, words