Backmasking

a woman's face with a double exposure

Backmasking

n.
the instinctive tendency to see someone as you knew them in their youth—a burned-in image of grass-stained knees, graffitied backpacks, or handfuls of birthday cake, superimposed on an adult with a mortgage, or children of their own.

In audio recording, backmasking is a technique wherein a sound is deliberately recorded backward, so it’s only intelligible when played in reverse.

Scabulous

Cover image for the Scabulous word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Hemeisis

Cover image for the Hemeisis word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

The Kinder Surprise

Cover image for the The Kinder Surprise word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Kadot

a person looking at an abstract spiral

Attriage

Cover image for the Attriage word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Offtides

close-up of a chromed metal object