Washington Post Neologism

Just got an e-mail from my friend Lindsey with the following included. I haven't verified that it's actually from the Washington Post, but they were too good not to include.

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words. A selection of the winners include:

• Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
• Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
• Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
• Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
• Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
• Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
• Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
• Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
• Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
• Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
• Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are some of this year's winners:

• Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
• Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
• Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
• Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
• Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.
• Karmageddon (n): its like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
• Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
• Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
• Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
• Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

OUR STRANGE LANGUAGE by E.L. Sabin

When the English tongue we speak,
Why is "break" not rhymed with "freak"?
Will you tell me why it's true,
We say "sew" but likewise "few",
And the fashioner of verse
Cannot cap his "horse" with "worse"?
"Beard" sounds not the same as "heard",
"Cord" is different from "word";"
Cow" is cow but "low" is low,"
Shoe" is never rhymed with "foe";
Think of "hose" and "dose" and "lose",
And of "goose" and also "choose";
Think of "tomb" and "bomb" and "comb",
"Doll" and "roll" and "some" and "home",
And since "pay" is rhymed with "say",
Why not "paid" and "said" I pray?
We have "blood" and "food" and "good",
"Mould" is not pronounced like "could";
Wherefore "done" but "gone" and "lone"?
Is there any reason known?
No, in short, it seems to me
Sound and letters disagree.

from: Practical Rules for Pronounciation, arranged by C. Heyman, Teacher of English in the Haarlem H.B.S. Third Edition; probably around 1910 (slightly adapted)

OUGH!

I've read Pilgrim's Progress several times and still can't remember how to pronounce slough, as in Slough of Despond. Does it rhyme with cow? Do? Cuff?

No letter combination in English is more frustrating than ough. It can be pronounced at least 9 different ways:

rough (uff)
through (oo)
bough (ow)
cough (off)
dough (oh)
hiccough (up)
fought (aw)
Poughkeepsie (uh)
Coughlin (og)

Slough causes problems because it's pronounced different ways, depending on meaning. Slough pronounced sluff is the term for shedding skin, like snakes do. Slough meaning wet, swampy ground can be pronounced either sloo or slou. Dictionary.com prefers slou, while the American Heritage Dictionary prefers sloo. I'm going with sloo too.

Feghoot #1

Not familiar with a feghoot? You probably are, but didn't know that's what they are called.

Ferdinand Feghoot is the fictional creation of sci-fi writer Reginald Bretnor (1911-1992), who published under the name Grendel Briarton. The stories involving Feghoot were always very brief and concluded with an elaborate pun.

A feghoot today doesn't need to be science fiction, but it must be brief and ridiculously punny. They are also known as groaners or shaggy-dog stories.

Mark Rapacioli, Editor of Planet Relish E-zine says, "A feghoot isn't just a short-short story with a joke at the end. A Feghoot is a short-short story that ends in a very groan-worthy pun." (quoted from: http://www.dowse.com/articles/Feghoot-article.html)

Enough explanation. Let's get to some examples:

Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at them and says, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, only one
carrion allowed per passenger."

A dog on crutches walks into a bar in the Wild West and says, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."

Mahatma Gandhi walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him .... what? (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good)
A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

This one stakes its claim as the "original shaggy dog story":
In the days of yore, a knight on an important mission, rode his horse so hard that it became lame. Spying a village ahead, the knight headed straight for the stables there.
"I must have a horse!" he cried, "The life of the King depends upon it!"
The stablekeeper shook his head. "I have no horses," he said. "They have all been taken in the service of the King."
"You must have something--a pony, a donkey, a mule, anything at all?" the knight asked.
"Nothing. . . unless. . . no, I couldn't"
The knight's eyes lit up. "Tell me!"
The stablekeeper led the knight into the stable where they saw an enormous dog! It was almost as large as the knight's horse. But it was also the filthiest, shaggiest, smelliest, dog the knight had ever seen.
Swallowing, the knight said "I'll take it. Where is the saddle?"
The stablekeeper was adament. "I can't do it." he told the knight.
"Why won't you give me the dog?" cried the desperate knight.
The stablekeeper replied, "I wouldn't send a knight out on a dog like this."

For more of these, check out:

http://gendertree.com/Feghoot.htm
http://www.badpuns.com/list.php?section=shaggy

Fear the Olive!

Starbucks may be guilty of intentional size obfuscation, but they are neither the first nor the worst.

Have you ever checked out the terms used for olive sizes? To quote Dave Barry again, I am not making this up. The olive industry uses the following sizes, based on the number of olives that make up a pound:

small: 128-140 per pound
medium: 106-127
large: 91-105
extra large: 65-90
jumbo: 47-64
colossal: 33-46
super colossal: <33

In Europe, the sizes are even more complex (and ridiculous):

Bullets 159-172 per pound
Fine 146-159
Brilliant 132-145
Superior 118-132
Large 105-118
Extra large 91-104
Jumbo 83-91
Extra Jumbo 74-82
Giant 65-73
Colossal 55-64
Super colossal 50-54
Mammoth 46-50
Super Mammoth 41-45

I find it hard to imagine being confronted with a mammoth olive, much less a super colossal olive. Frightening, in fact.

Starbucks Sizes

I stand an unimposing 5 feet, 5 inches. Recently, a wise-acre student of mine told me, "Mr. Wasko, you're tall...Starbucks style!"

I've got no problem with Starbucks calling their largest size cup of coffee a venti. It's pretty clever, really, since venti is Italian for twenty--the number of ounces in the large cup. But it's just downright marketing madness to refer to the smallest size as tall. I understand the desire to avoid terms with any negative connotations, but sometimes people just want a small cup of coffee. If I want small and get offered something tall, it troubles me.
Fortunately, the Starbucks coffee jerks (okay, baristas, dang it) around here don't correct me when I ask for a "little one." In fact, I say "big one" instead of venti too, not because I disapprove, but because it sounds so pretentious.

Dave Barry agrees:

...this trend began several years ago when Starbucks decided to call its cup sizes "Tall" (meaning "not tall," or "small"), "Grande" (meaning "medium") and "Venti" (meaning, for all we know, "weasel snot"). Unfortunately, we consumers, like moron sheep, started actually USING these names. Why? If Starbucks decided to call its toilets "AquaSwooshies," would we go along with THAT? Yes! Baaa!

Area Rug?

An area rug, I guess, is a rug that covers an area. As opposed to...?