Every now and then, I say "wuckles" next to a person who I am work trialing, or who for some other reason cares about not looking dumb in front of me.

They casually-but-frantically google "wuckles" in the background to try to figure out what I meant. The only google result for "wuckles" is an urban dictionary response which is not what I meant by it, and it's pretty clear from context it's not what I meant by it. They are confused.

This post is for the third such person, should they appear one day.

Wuckles (usually pronounced "Wuckles!") is an exclamation I make. For a long time, I didn't really know what it meant, I just knew a wuckles when I saw one.

Eventually, I saw a LessWrong quick take that made me really want a "wuckles" react, and then I was kinda confused why I needed a wuckles react, instead of any of our existing epistemic reacts. This forced me to sus out "what makes something a wuckles?"

"Wuckles" means "I am surprised and confused, and, it's kinda interesting that I'm surprised and confused."

Sometimes, you have a pleasant wuckles. 

You are walking down the street [...]

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Outline:

(01:11 ) Sometimes, you have a pleasant wuckles.

(01:36 ) Sometimes, you have an unpleasant wuckles.

(01:59 ) Sometimes, you have a mild wuckles.

(02:18 ) Sometimes, you arent even sure what kind of wuckles you have.

(02:43 ) Wuckles vs Huckles vs Fuckles

(03:33 ) Wuckles, the missing epistemic emotion

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First published:

December 18th, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XJNYqBfD3d7QhKoqk/wuckles-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.