海角大神

鈥泪蝉听done an emotion?鈥� a friend asked me recently. It鈥檚 a popular question, posed on social media and printed on humorous T-shirts and mugs, followed by 鈥渂ecause I feel it in my soul.鈥� Clearly done resonates with many people, but what does it mean to feel this way? And could this past participle of the verb to do be considered an emotion?

We all know how to interpret 鈥淚鈥檓 done with the report鈥� 鈥� it means 鈥淚鈥檝e finished it.鈥� But as a BBC site for language learners points out, done can also imply the opposite. 鈥淚鈥檓 just so done with writing this report鈥� means the report is not finished and the person working on it is 鈥渋rritated and bored by it,鈥� and doesn鈥檛 want to continue. Since around 2000, and especially since the pandemic, people have increasingly been declaring themselves 鈥渄one鈥� or 鈥渟o done.鈥澛�

Some people who announce that they are 鈥渄one鈥� might still be expressing irritation. Others might be employing the word as it was used in the 16th century, meaning 鈥渢ired, exhausted, beaten, defeated.鈥澛�

罢辞诲补测鈥檚 done starts in this exhaustion, then moves beyond it. 鈥淚 am so done鈥� is a declaration of resignation, a refusal to engage any longer, a stepping back. It鈥檚 a state beyond irritation, beyond tiredness, beyond struggle. It鈥檚 not a powerful effusion, like anger, fear, or joy, but a refocusing of attention away from something.

Etymologically at least, it is hard to identify done as an emotion. Emotion comes from the Latin emovere, 鈥渕ove out, agitate,鈥� and when it was first used in English in the mid-16th century it referred to 鈥減olitical agitation ... a public commotion or uprising.鈥� When a historian wrote in 1683 that 鈥渢he last years of the Reign of Charles V caused some Emotions in the Cities,鈥� he meant that there were riots. Soon, individuals as well as body politics could have emotions, as the word came to mean 鈥渁n agitation of mind, an excited mental state.鈥� 聽

The definition has always been more inclusive than exclusive, and pretty much anything anyone has ever felt has been called an 鈥渆motion鈥� at some point.聽

Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to 鈥渢he emotions of benevolence and complacency鈥�; listicles like 鈥�10 ultra-specific emotions you never knew you had鈥� include Torschlusspanik (鈥済ate-closing panic鈥�), the stress over time running out, and sonder, the realization that every person you pass has an interior life that is just as vivid to them as yours is to you. 聽

Given that usage of 鈥淚鈥檓 so done鈥� has gone up 200 times since 2000, according to Google鈥檚 Ngram Viewer, it seems to be filling a linguistic need. Is it, strictly speaking, an emotion? Sure, why not? I鈥檓 done. 聽