Feng Shuidenfrued

I watch a lot of Home & Garden TV (HGTV), Discovery Home, and The Learning Channel (TLC). I realize this doesn't exactly help beef up my Manly Portfolio, but I like decorating shows -- it's cool to see a living space go from gag-worthy to sparkling. Good design should be appreciated, whether it's on a web page or in a home.

And it doesn't hurt that Tanya Memme, the host of "Sell This House", is a hottie bo-bottie. Youza!

But this morning I realized that there's more to it than that. It's also fun to watch the homeowners squirm as they have to explain why they let their domicile get so dilapidated. "We're lazy" is the most common excuse, but the steely and disapproving glare of the host and/or designer really makes them uncomfortable.

There's a German name for this -- "schadenfreude" -- which means "pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune." Combining that concept with the the ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony with the environment called "feng shui", then broadcasting it on American reality television, therefore, gives rise to a newly-coined, Jeff Hebert word for the day:

Feng Shuidenfrued: feng shui·den·freu·de or [fuhng shweyd-n-froi-duh]

satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's interior design misfortune.
[Origin: 2007; coined by Jeff Hebert]