text:
other than a hyperlink, double click any word
you see for its definition and pronunciation.
hoodie lum - A description of a self-styled "gangster" based on the hooded jackets popularly worn by young males on the streets.
e.g., Man! First der was the homeboy shortie pants. Den der was da lidded cap worn backass on d'head. Now y'got the zip up jacket wit da hood dat goes up to a peak on yer head. C'mon, boy, y'aint no hoodie lum less y'wear yer hood, in da nay ber hood!
submitted by Charlie Lesko
cureasow - A place to send someone who eats too much for healing.
e.g., At lunch today our pal Chris pigged out, grabbed my portion, and hogged all of the French Fries on the table -- so we sent her to Cureasow.
submitted by Frank J. Mandriota
cicada - An Islamic-terror subgroup, consisting of terminally-ill terrorists.
e.g., When you have a particularly difficult terrorist mission, forget Al-Qaeda. They're nothing compared to the fearsome members of Cicada.
submitted by Joe Kreiter - (www)
united nations children's fund - UNICEF, United Nations Children's Fund, formerly United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF - now United Nations Children's Fund) works for children's rights, their survival, development and protection, guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The UNICEF is a United Nations Programme headquartered in New York City, that provides long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries. It is one of the members of the United Nations Development Group and its Executive Committee. UNICEF.org en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNICEF
e.g., Donate to help United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) meet the urgent needs of children.
submitted by Laginto
uttar - Hindi for "total," "complete".
e.g., After the storm had hit, the northern Indian states were in uttar pradesh (complete disarray).
submitted by kai
neurosmith - A master at neuropathy and spreading her own personal neurosis among peers for the sake of improving society.
e.g., Tammy has, in the past few decades, begun using my language -- acting with true foolishness and spreading her own neuropathy due to my being such a master neurosmith.
submitted by steve zihlavsky
feels - An extremely strong emotion about a certain movie, book, or TV show. Usually felt by fangirls or fanboys, and incomprehensible to normal people.
e.g., I suffer from Reichenbach feels and cry if I watch that particular episode of BBC Sherlock.
submitted by Sherlock
freerice - The world's only vocabulary game that feeds the hungry in association with World Food Programme. Play, learn, and donate rice with every right answer. Give free rice to hungry people by playing a simple game that increases your knowledge. FreeRice.com WFP.org
e.g., FreeRice increases your knowledge.
submitted by Laginto
waltoning - To announce that you are leaving, or signing off from a public chat, and then spend time saying goodbye\goodnight to each person and waiting for their reply. From the end sequence of "The Waltons", whereby each member would say good night to the other. {ED. Nice to see you back after all thiis time.}
e.g., She said she had to leave to catch a bus, but spent so much time waltoning, she missed it.
submitted by Mila Eighteen
troll-grazing - Var. on "troll-GAZING. Online activity wherein an individual surfs the web for commentaries on news sites and blog sites that will fill him with righteous fury -- thus self-validating his own positions and attitudes.
e.g., Three hours a day of dedicated troll-grazing left John feeling purer and more righteous than Sir Galahad of the Round table publicly rejecting the salacious overtures of Morgan LeFay's illegitimate Fairie offspring.
submitted by j t gillick - (www)
matriot - (MAY-tree-ut; n.) 1. Somebody female who loves their country; 2. Somebody, male or female, who comes from a country which their culture refers to as a "motherland"; 3. Any college or high-school student (mostly pre60s) who loves their alma-mater. [From "patriot," but using "mater" instead of "pater" as the source word.]
e.g., Abigail Adams was the paradigmatic matriot. | Misha is a Russian Matriot (since he comes from the Russian "Motherland"). | "All matriots should plan to come to the team spirit bonfire on Friday!"
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
smelldentical - (Pronounced smel-DEN-tic-ul, also sometimes sme-DEN-tic-ul (without the internal L sound); adj.) 1. Having the same scent, odor, fragrance, of whatever synonym of "smell" you care to use; 2. As suspicious (fishy, questionable, etc.) as some other dubious situation. [From "smell" + "identical."] Related: smelldentity, smelldentification.
e.g., That pizza is smelldentical to the kind we used to make at home. | Okay, what's going on? You look mighty suspicious. It's practically smelldentical to what Kirby used to do.
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
neologist - One who coins new words. {Duplicate.}
e.g., With his coining of the word "meme" in The Selfish Gene in 1976, Richard Dawkins established himself as one of our most widely recognized and influential modern neologists.
submitted by J T GILLICK - (www)
sage - (v.) 1. To clean swiftly and thoroughly---astonishingly swiftly and thoroughly---especially when driven by a seemingly boundless enthusiasm; 2. To do anything swiftly and thoroughly, with seemingly boundless enthusiasm; (interj.) 3. Vocal recognition of an astonishingly swift and thorough cleaning job, performed with a seemingly boundless enthusiasm.
e.g., "Wow, this room is filthy! How can you live in this pigsty? Clean this place up!" "I was gonna sage it, but now---" "Now you're going to clean it up anyway, right?" "... um, yeah. But you're not getting any boundless enthusiasm." | "I wanted a car wash, but they saged it! My car looks brand new again! And they vacuumed it and chamoised the windows and polished the leather, and even replaced the sparkplugs."
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
vearly - A conjunction of very and early, describing something that's earlier than something that's early, on-time, or worse yet -- LATE!
e.g., Usually, my son's late. But, to buy tickets for a concert by his favorite musical artist? For THAT he's VEARLY!
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
siblikids - The children of one's siblings, nephews and nieces, combined (Kirsty Kurilowicz, 2007).
e.g., When was the last time you saw your siblikids?
submitted by Ariel Kurilowicz
richard parker - (n.) 1(n.) 1. A Bengal tiger; by extension, 2. Any tiger, of whatever stripe (pardon the pun), Bengali, Sumatran, South Chinese, Siberian, vel cet.; 3. A tiger who has been---well, not domesticated, hmmm---familiarized such that it is �safer� than the common run of Panthera tigris silvestris �[a] wild tiger�; 4. An ordinarily dangerous wild animal with whom some particular person or people can interact safely.
e.g., "Now, remember, stay in the compound! Do not wander off! Every year, it's the same thing: some macho idiot thinks he can walk around safe outside the compound, and I have to be the one to tell his family that African wildlife cannot resist the scent of an idiot, and so he got eaten by a crocodile or by a hyena or got torn to pieces by a hippopotamus or was gored by a water buffalo. These animals are not Richard Parkers: you cannot make peace with them! You are not Dr. Doolittle! You are not Eliza Thornberry! You are not in Narnia! Stay INSIDE!"
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
submitted by
dislocuta - The anxiety brought about by the restrictive nature of language, and by extension, that brought about by the restrictive nature of any system of meaning. "Dislocuta" does not simply refer to the distress of someone who cannot express herself, but very precisely, the distress of the individual who cannot put her thoughts into language due to the boundaries of the system of meaning in which they take part.
e.g., The Occupy protesters suffered from a terrible case of dislocuta: the ideals they fought for could not be explained within the language of capitalism. | Adorno�s comments on the impossibility of poetry after Auschwitz typify the intellectual dislocuta prevalent in post-war Europe.
submitted by Ed Thornton - (www)
menausea trois - When three people, originally having sexual relations and living together, get sick of the arrangement.
e.g., At first, the menage a trois was a dream come true. But after a while, things began to lose their luster, and we grew sick of each other. Our happy menage a trois became a sickening menausea trois.
submitted by Joe Kreiter - (www)
political pourk - The vasts sums of money that flow to politicians for often wasteful and unnecessary hometown projects, all to help the politician get re-elected, and all at taxpayers' expense.
e.g., In my city of 45,000 motorists and pedestrians, car travel, at a confluence of three major downtown streets, was successfully regulated by a group of timed traffic lights. Now, in the system's place stands a traffic circular roundabout -- one expensive to build, not ever wanted by our citizens, and one that has created more problems than existed before.
submitted by Charlie Lesko
departee - The exchange of witty goodbye comments, what-I-forgot-to-says, and last-minute cleverisms held in or near the doorway as you leave a party or other social gathering.
e.g., We tried to leave the Baer-Jonses' dinner in time to get home for Mad Men, but twenty minutes of low-rent departee screwed that pooch good.
submitted by J T Gillick
hipstory - The history of "hipsters" in world history, whether in art, music, film, politics, fashion, economics. . . .
e.g., You want to bring back beat poetry? Man, that's hipstory. (Beat poets were the "hipsters" in their day.)
submitted by Fazal Miles
- Adding a pseudo-spam entry to get a slot for adding a new entry from the back end.
submitted by
point blimfark - The speed at which a forward-rotating wagon wheel's spokes (or of any similarly discernible wheels) look as if they're rotating backward.
e.g., Trudy was straddling Fred in the backseat of a taxi going down a freeway. She looked out the window and noticed the motorcycle travelling next to them. The biker looked back at her, realized what she was doing, and promptly veered off the road into the guardrail. Trudy exclaimed, "Wow!" Fred asked, "What happened?" Trudy replied, "That bike's wheels hit Point Blimfark right before he wrecked."
submitted by Jimmy
undant - A part of the body that is used in place of a hand, especially when waving.
e.g., Jimmy had his hands full at the time, so when John waved hello to him, he used his elbow as an undant.
submitted by Jake Levin
daffynition - The second (intermediate) part of a PD entry; the description. | A statement that explains the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols), as entered in the Pseudodictionary.
e.g., These daffynitions are enough to make one hysterical (take that as you will). | Ooops -- how embarrassing; I opened my very own version of the Pseudodictionary on 17 Apr 2004 with the word \"daffynition\" and yet never before thought to enter it here in the real PD!
submitted by S. Berliner, III - (www)
pseudodentin - False teeth.
e.g., Do you have dentures? Yea, they're pseudodentin.
submitted by Liam - (www)
psychomortalic - Brain dead.
e.g., "Why hasn't Jim Ben to work lately?" "He's psychomortalic."
submitted by Liam - (www)
marsh-mellow - Wetlands that are calm and relaxed.
e.g., Having risked life and limb navigating treacherous rapids, I was relieved to steer my canoe into a marsh-mellow.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
sweetkraut - A friendly German or person of German descent. {Duplicate.}
e.g., August Leupold was a Sweetkraut. At his wake there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers signed Beloved Landlord! A very rare person.
submitted by Frank Mandriota - (www)
alzheimlich maneuver - An attempt to save the life of a choking victim, despite the fact that the "Heimlicher" has forgotten how to "Heimlich." {Duplicate.} {ED. Made me laugh out loud. Thanks for continuing to entertain the pseudo-partners -- two guys sharing the same brain our wives say.}
e.g., I don't know if it was the stressful situation, or if I just should have attended that refresher Heimlich Maneuver course. But for the life of me, when my friend was choking, I couldn't remember what to do! So, I put my arms around him from behind, and then the rest came back to me. Thank God! Even though it started as an Alzheimlich Maneuver, I was still able to dislodge the unchewed steak from his windpipe [Note:purely fictional scenario.]
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
lesbolshevik - (n., adj.) feminist.
e.g., Too many lesbolsheviks are occupying seats of power in Washington to suit me.
submitted by Karl Jahn - (www)
affaire de queue - (n.) a sexual involvement completely devoid of romantic sentiment.
e.g., Affaires de queue seem to be the order of the day, but they have no allure for me.
submitted by Karl Jahn - (www)
ethnophobia - (n.) irrational fear and hatred of one's own nation.
e.g., If you had told me thirty years ago that we'd elect as many ethnophobes to office as we have, I wouldn't have believed it.
submitted by Karl Jahn - (www)
ninjcompoop - A foolish or stupid martial artist.
e.g., Of course, our sensei is a black belt. Fast as lightning, he can beat the stuffings out of any attacker. But in a battle of wits, he's a defenseless ninjcompoop.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
aftergibe - (n.) a clever retort that comes to mind when the opportunity to use it has gone.
e.g., It was the same as it always is. My wit took the form of an aftergibe -- halfway down the stairwell.
submitted by Karl Jahn - (www)
cleavage season - (n.) spring and summer.
e.g., It's been a long time coming, but cleavage season is finally here.
submitted by Karl Jahn - (www)
xenocentrism - (n.) 1. belief that every other nation is somehow superior to one's own; 2. belief that the well-being of foreigners is more important than the well-being of one's own compatriots.
e.g., "If you ask me, I think we have entirely too many elected representatives inside the Beltway who are xenocentrists." "Umm, you mean like. . . ." "Yeah, the President. And more than half the Senate."
submitted by Karl Jahn - (www)
achladiomorph - (n.) a woman whose figure would be improved if the extra mass could be moved from her thighs and buttocks to her breasts.
e.g., "The achladiomorph in my office would have been a fun sexual encounter had her excess been apportioned properly; however, I have unsettling memories of pock-marked gluteals instead."
submitted by Karl Jahn - (www)
nosthedonia - (Pronounced to rhyme with lost-hee-TONE-ya; n.) This term has a number of seemingly discordant meanings, although it is supposed to be a simple antonym for nostalgia, which comes from the Greek: nos- "homecoming" or just �home� + -algia "pain, sorrow," together having come to mean "longing for home.� Nosthedonia, on the other hand, can mean 1. Delight at (finally) coming (or going) home; 2. The happiness of being able to talk to or skype with distant loved-ones; 3. Anticipatory delight for familiar faces and places (affecting both those awaiting someone�s return as well as the returners(?)); 4. The excitement of a welcome-home party, (especially a surprise welcome-home party); 5. The joy of recollecting home when you are (or are feeling) far away; 6. The wonderful feeling of heading home on Friday, especially for a long weekend (cf. sasumo) (also known as heimgehenfreude (q.v.)); but also (oddly) 7. Reveling in finally getting away from home and off to make your fortune (i.e., taking nostalgia literally, as in �home is a pain�); 8. The feeling when you realize one day that your brain now thinks of your new place as your �home�; and, finally, 9. The feeling you get when you talk to someone suffering from nostalgia while you are sitting in your own house/neighborhood/city or whatever.
e.g., My son came home from missionary work last week; the nosthedonia at the airport smothered me in cotton batting. | "Wow, you look happy." "Yeah! I'm off to college!: Finally, life my way!" "Well, good on ya! Nosthedonia makes for a great trip." "Nostee---what? Is that Russian?"
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
heimgehenfreude - (Rhymes with LIME-gay-hen-DROID-eh, or LIME-gay-en-DROID-eh; n.) 1. The feeling, actual or anticipatory, of going home for the weekend, especially 2. the feeling of going home for a long weekend. (From the German for "home-going-joy"... sorta.) (Cf. nosthedonia, sasumo.)
e.g., "Long weekend! What are you gonna do?" "I'm going surfing!" "My wife and I are going skydiving!" "We're gonna watch all of Monk straight through!" "I'm going to Boston to examine some very old coins ... perhaps I'll buy a few." "Whoa...this is good Heimgehenfreude."
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
dftba - It stands for: "Don't Forget To Be Awesome." Typically used by the YouTube Vlogbrothers who I think made it up. Can be used as a goodbye. You can also just say don't forget to be awesome. It's technically an initialism, not a word. Could also stand for Damn fine to be alive, Delano fears to be afraid, Do fish take baths a lot?, Duel for the best acronym, Darling fetch the battle axe, Drunk fish try breathing air, Dark force to barely apprehend, Danes fear the burning acropolis, Donate for the blood association, Don't for the beaux's admiration, Don't forget that brains attract, Dead frogs teach bored anatomists, Damn Facebook too bloody addicting, Darkened forests take bravery away, Dastardly farmers took Bessie away, I came Down for the baby's arrival, Dogs frequently take back apologies, Distro falling through bleak autumn, Delightful fans that blithely assist, Debutante's fame tarnished by affairs, Doctor Freud's topic became afflicting, Decepticons fear this brilliant autobot, Delilah's fruitcake triggers belly-ache, But she was Destined for the burger anyway, Difficult financial times bring apocalypse, Dreadful feudal treachery breeds atrocities, Until your Dorky farting turdface brother arrives, and But the Dead father's thoughts became archival.
e.g., Tell her . . . tell her DFTBA.
submitted by Jocelyn
crimbasic - Religion-based word.
e.g., Gallup International Millennium Survey interviewed 57,000 adults in 60 different countries of the world between August and October, 1999, representing 1.25 billion of the planet's inhabitants. The survey covered a wide range of topics of an ethical, political, and religious nature, focusing specifically on issues close to people's emocracy, the United Nations, human rights, women's rights, the environment, religion crimbasic values --particularly those which will have an impact on the new millennium. Issues such as De and "What Matters Most in Life" were included.
submitted by John
naughdirt - Financially "naughty" practices, which are discovered during a "naughdit."
e.g., Because of the naughdirt that was dug up during the course of the naughdit, the CEO was forced to resign.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
naughdit - An audit, through which they find that someone was doing financially "naughty" things.
e.g., When they discovered that Jim was hiding money in an offshore bank, the everyday "vanilla" audit mushroomed into a full-fledged, no-holds-barred naughdit.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
cowherd - A person who has a morbid fear of being trampled in a cattle stampede.
e.g., Nancy, why are you so afraid of being caught in a stampede? We're in New York City, for God's Sake! Not a single cow for miles! You won't come outside with me? What are you? Some kind of cowherd?
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
cravoid - The object or behaviour associated with a craving such as chocolate, salty carbohydrates, sex, etc. that is used to soothe or calm the craving or underlying discomfort. Although primarily a descriptor related to cravings, it may also be applied to addictive substances and addictions.
e.g., The food craving research group learned the psychological technique and applied it when the desire for their cravoid arose.
submitted by Brett Porter - (www)
thrivival - The act or accomplishment of surviving and thriving. Thrivived (v) Thriviving (v) Thrivivor (n)
e.g., The infant's thrivival seems assured with such loving and competent parents attending to her needs and providing such a rich learning environment. | Despite his initial despair in his isolated situation, he was a natural thrivivor.
submitted by Brett Porter - (www)
staritoriality - (pronounced like "territoriality," with an /s/ before it; n.) The area over which a cat believes herself to rule, haughtily opening her eyes and flicking her ears toward interlopers (especially other animals) and then, after a few moments (during which, I imagine, the interloper is supposed to tremble in fear, lest her royal felinity command her retainers (that's us) to put them to death or feed them to something bloodthirsty)---after a few moments, her miaojesty slowly closes her Eyes (I always capitalize the Eyes of a cat for some reason) and regally turns away, allowing the intruder to remain ... or flies at it in a hissing and spitting, claws unsheathed, to drive it from her domain. [Coined by my daughter in reference to her cat, Piper.]
e.g., "I thought you were getting more ice cream." "I was, but your cat's sitting on top of the freezer doing that staritoriality thing they do." "So?" "Well, staritoriality creeps me out. It was, like, 'Open this freezer, human, and I'll scalp you.' So I just left."
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
grumble-bragging - Ostensibly complaining about something, but really taking pride in it.
e.g., "You guys can come over, but my dad will probably make you do math problems like he does with me." "Ah, you're just grumble-bragging."
submitted by Robert Arvanitis - (www)
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spyte - To speak, write and type the same time: (spahyt), spytes (spahyts), spote (spoht), spyting (spahy-ting). A spyter (spahy-ter) is one who types.
e.g., You spyte when you use speech recognition software, which translates your speech to text. | Spyting is the fastest and most efficient way to write. | Anyone with a smart phone can spyte. | Anyone with an iPhone can spyte with Siri. | I have been spyting, instead of writing or typing, for several years now and I spote a book called Suddenly Sane. | Suddenly Sane is the spyten word as opposed to the written word. | I am the first spyter, but not the first to use speech recognition.
submitted by Mindy Scott - (www)
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gromax - (noun) That part of your leg that sticks to the vinyl car seat when you're wearing shorts on a hot summer day. Note: This word was introduced on TV in the 1980s as a Sniglet.
e.g., When getting out of the car at the pool, I had to peel my gromax off the seat.
submitted by G. Tom Tsao - (www)
allardyce - [aka "Flint's Arrow"; n.] 1. A skeleton (or part of a skeleton) used as a pointer, marker, or sign; by extension, 2. A dead body used as a pointer, marker, or sign; 3. Any sign or marker made of bone; 4. Any "spooky" pointer, as in a Halloween decoration of some such. [From Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, in which Captain John Flint has used the body of one of his sailors (a man named Allardyce) as a pointer to his buried treasure.]
e.g., At the foot of a pretty big pine and involved in a green creeper, which had even partly lifted some of the smaller bones, a human skeleton lay, with a few shreds of clothing, on the ground....
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
trystiny - A word formed by a combination of \'tryst\' and \'destiny\'. It denotes an involuntary appointment with some person or event (or missing of the same), which on hindsight appears to have no explanation other than that it is an act of \'Destiny\'.
e.g., They all agreed that it was just trystiny that brought him there when he really had no business being there there at the time; it had to be trystiny that sent him to save them from certain death. {ED. Thanks for your additions. They brightened my morning a bit.}
submitted by William Edwin - (www)
angerous - Angry enough to become dangerous, anger laced with boisterous emotion.
e.g., The news that his obviously undeserving colleague beat him to the pay raise made him very angerous
submitted by William Edwin - (www)
airified - Puffed up, proud, depicting oneself as something big, while in reality being just an "air bag."
e.g., We believed his jungle adventure tales till we saw a little spider scare him out of his wits; it turned out he was not quite as brave as he led us to believe, just an airified braggart.
submitted by William Edwin - (www)
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trinitty-gritty - That which is basic, practical and essential, as it pertains to the Catholic Church.
e.g., On March 13, 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, was installed as the Catholic Church's new Pope. Pope Francis has the reputation of being a reformer, and he could lead the Catholic Church back to the Trinitty-Gritty.
submitted by Joe Kreiter - (www)
inched - Misled, wrongfully informed.
e.g., I was talking to customer support and was inched. | No matter how honest I was, I still got inched. | Nothing pisses me off much more than to post a comment to an online discussion only to find that I had been inched and used misinformation.
submitted by sjdkjjs
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emailstrom - (noun) Emaelstrom. Mesmerising or distressing electronic email delivery phenomenon of computers that have been neglected, sometimes for even a short period, where the viewer feels as if she has been pinned inside a cybercentrifuge (and there's another one for ya).
e.g., Each morning, she spiralled into the emailstrom of downloading messages on her computer and lost consciousness in the vertical vortex.
submitted by Brett Porter - (www)
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niff-naw - Niff-naw is a word to use when two people just start picking on each other out of annoyance. It usually occurs between two people who know each other pretty well -- such as family members (siblings usually). To niff-naw is to engage in verbal teasing, "picking" on each other -- it is never physical. {ED. It could get physical very fast in my family.}
e.g., Let's say you are two siblings sitting in the back seat of your parents' station wagon (c. 1963) and you are on a long road trip to whereever and you start verbally picking on each other and your mother turns around in her seat and yells: "Would you two stop niff-nawing, right now!" That's how you use it.
submitted by Suzanne Parker
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dorian gray - Someone looking very pretty whose appearance doesn't change.
e.g., "There is, some scientists say, a real Dorian Gray among us � someone who, through a mixture of good genes, healthy lifestyle and timely medical interventions, will give every illusion of staying young throughout an extraordinarily long life." (�The Sunday Times� 29.05.12)
submitted by Irina
dieversion - The version of a story, in which at least one of the characters dies.
e.g., When Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet, he had the option of making it a light-hearted comedy. When asked why he wrote it as a tragedy, the Bard answered, "Hey, it's just a dieversion."
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
investigation - The investment of funds for the purpose of transporting water to a drought-stricken region.
e.g., When I was asked to donate to bring badly-needed water to midwest farmers, I asked, "You want an investigation? You think I give a DAM?"
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
cantthankaurus - A sub-species of the genus Homo Sapiens. Members of the class are distinguished by a constant sour and bitter demeanor and an inability to express gratitude.
e.g., Hundreds of thousands of restaurant wait staff, store and office clerks, civil servants, airline stewies, DMV employees, attendants of all varieties, English-speaking service telephone responders of various nationalities, and just plain folks who are kind enough to wait and hold a door open, or just allow a car to enter busy traffic at a stoplight, are negatively impacted, on a daily basis, by the growing ranks of the Cantthankaurus.
submitted by Charlie Lesko
saranity - The peaceful feeling one gets when wrapping things in plastic.
e.g., Putting leftovers away in the fridge can be therapeutic. It fills me with a feeling of saranity.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
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rigi scan - An instrument used in male research to determine if patients are able to get an erection while sleeping. It measures penile tumescence and rigidity continuously. It has two loops, one to be placed around the base of the penis and the other towards the tip, that tighten every fifteen or thirty seconds.
e.g., The doctor recommended him to do the Rigi Scan.
submitted by Nicholas Chernov
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fruitabels - The little sticky tags placed on fruits and vegetables to identify and sell them.
e.g., Blech! When I bit into my apple, I accidentally swallowed the fruitabel. Now I feel sick. . . .
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procraftinator - Someone who postpones work and instead spends time on craft projects. A craft-loving procrastinator.
e.g., Instead of working on her chemistry homework packet that was due at the end of the week, Emma, the ultimate procraftinator, spent her study time designing a new t-shirt.
submitted by Arie Katz
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comedic - Having to do with the various classes of cosmetics, the overall industry and scope of cosmetics.
e.g., Doris wore the look of a stunned grizzly bear as she entered the comedic wonderland of the new 12 acre beauty store. In fact, she would need all this makeup to cover the grizzly bear look she sported.
submitted by Doris Crinkle
humpy - /həmp pē/ (adj.) to exude a certain confident sexuality; one who oozes a sexiness that make your knees shake.
e.g., I want to go out with that humpy stud we saw at the gym today.
submitted by WayneSF - (www)
fingerwipe - 1. v. To wipe some goop, paint can trash, a fly/spider/bug/hair/poop, etc. from your fresh paint, food, or other project for the purpose of decontamination. 2. v. After having done the above, to remove said object from your finger onto another surface. 3. n. After having done the immediately above, the dried remnant of such.
e.g., Recycling old paint into fine art is one of Steve's hobbies. As a result, when brushing or rolling a surface, he often has to make a fingerwipe, occasionally using it as a fingerwipe on another piece of art.
submitted by steve zihlavsky
wafro - A white girl Afro or an unmanageable head of curly hair on a Caucasian.
e.g., Aww . . . look. Heidi's wafro is mad out of control today.| C'mon, son, you better pic your wafro. It's flat on one side.
submitted by heidi groth
spitting midget - A malapropism used to compare a young child with an adult member of a family. (Coined by my mother, Anna "Malaprop" Lesko).
e.g., "Michael, you take after your uncle, John. Shirley, you look just like your father. But Charlie, Jr., you're the 'spitting midget' of your grandfather!"
submitted by Charlie Lesko
baby jesus awesome - Pretty much as awesome as it gets -- at least according to the example, which comes from an Amazon.com review of Wheelmate Laptop Steering Wheel Desk. More reviews at the link provided. My son turned me on to "gut-busting" Amazon reviews by linking me to reviews for How to Avoid Huge Ships. I found reviews for Castration: The Advantages and the Disadvantages on my own, while I was looking for comments on the HAHS reviews. Some of the CTAD were ba-- gut busting, too.
e.g., "Adding this desk to my car's steering wheel has been baby Jesus awesome. I love e-mailing the Highway Patrol while I drive to let them know the tag numbers of cell-phone using drivers. Lordy!"
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
annivorcery - (n.) The anniversary of one's divorce. [I don't recall the movie or series I heard this in, but it sounded very pseudo to me.]
e.g., Madison is weird: she just spent all day celebrating her annivorcery ... with her ex!
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
alcohol-aids - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, contracted from unprotected sex with drunk partners. {ED. I use "{Duplicate.}" to flag entries I hope to get back to some day, not necessarily restricted to actual duplicate entries.}
e.g., Bill the Bartender might have received Alcoho-laids from his buddies, for bedding people whom he seduced with alcohol, but when he seduced his bi-sexual friend, using alcohol, he got more than he bargained for -- Alcohol-Aids.) (See? It really DOES matter where you stick your hyphen.) {ED. You're right, Joe K (Joke?), it does matter. I have a huge backlog of instances where a slight change in either punctuation or spaces can make a difference in what's being said. It will take a lot of effort to turn what I have into a tutorial on usage, and I may never get around to doing so. May never? Ha. Most likely never. For instance, there's a difference, sometimes, between "some day" and "someday."}
submitted by Joe Kreiter - (www)
alcoho-laid - Praise and recognition received for having sex with people with whom you've gotten drunk.
e.g., For getting women drunk, and "having his way" with them, Bill the Bartender received alcoho-laids from his buddies.
submitted by Joe Kreiter - (www)
trmm - A tactic deployed by the driver of an automobile, whereby the car moves as slowly as possible toward a red light in the hopes the light will turn green, thereby avoiding a full stop and applying of the handbrake.
e.g., "Oh really," responded Charles, as he trmmed toward the four-way junction by the department store.
submitted by Robin Armstrong
presster - A combination of the words pressure and pester. To coerce (someone) by annoying her or him with frequent, persistent requests or interruptions. {Duplicate.}
e.g., Because of their parents' demanding jobs and hectic schedules, many children have learned to prester their parents into allowing them an array of grown-up privileges such as staying out late, drinking alcohol, piercing ears and other body parts, getting tattoos, dying hair, wearing make-up, watching inappropriate films and having sex. |
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
copywrite - (n.) 1. A variant (or solecism, if you're a purist,) of the legal term "copyright" (which means "the right to copy (or repeat) a given work," including the idea of distribution or sale); (v.) 2. Like "copyright," "copywrite" appears to have the same meaning: To secure a legal right against unauthorized misappropriation, misattribution, reproduction, distribution, transmission, or performance of your own work. [There's also a passive participle "copywritten."]
e.g., "A district court just rejected a claim alleging that briefs were copywritten. fromEdward White v. West Publishing Corp, No. 12-1340 (S.D.N.Y.)," Debra Cassens Weiss,"Cut-and-paste brief brings sanction for Lindsay Lohan�s lawyer in tossed suit over Pitbull lyric," ABA Journal website (February 25, 2013), Comment 24 (posted by "Joe," March 1, 2013).
submitted by scott m. ellsworth
loophose - Sounds a lot like loopholes: a tax break for others (say, for instance, the wealthy) that ends up hosing you and me. {Duplicate.}
e.g., Well, Sequestration Day is here, thanks in large part to congressional Republicans who refuse to consider closing even one loophose for the wealthy. What next, the dissolution of the union?
submitted by HD Fowler
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excretorium - Rest Room, Men's, Ladies Room, etc. do not describe the function. More to the point a casual descriptor could be Peepooper but excretorium is more technically correct. {ED. And once again I notice the lack of egalitarianism or equality in the way excretoria are named. Shouldn't they be named on an equal basis, Ladies and Gentlemen (or Gents) or Men and Women? Then, too, why wouldn't possessives be used equally for both? Men's & Women's or Ladies' & Gents'? Idle mind and all that.}
e.g., May I use your excretorium?
submitted by Frank Mandriota
lip-sanc - (Rhymes with "SIP-drank"; v.) Apparently the past tense of "lip-sync." [On analogy with "drink~drank," I'd imagine.]
e.g., My 12-year-old daughter was explaining her inability to follow along with her friends in reciting affirmations. She said, "They knew it, and I didn't; so I just lib sanc."
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
jury-proof - (adj.) Legal evidence so clear and obvious that not even a jury can find against it---something juries are believed to do all the time. [I found this curious little attributive in a Sherlock Holmes story written by Adrian Conan Doyle (Arthur's son) and John Dickson Carr, although it cannot recall which: it may have been "The Sealed Room" or "The Highgate Miracle," but I'm pretty sure it was "The Black Baronet."] {ED. A most enjoyable commentary. Thanks for the laugh.}
e.g., "Okay!: we have a sworn confession, two separate security tapes, one bystander's recording, two dozen witnesses, casts of the guy's shoes, his fingerprints, and his dna. I think we've got jury-proof evidence this time."
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
divorce welfare sysytem (dws) - A welfare system wherein ex-husbands continue to support ex-wives after a divorce.
e.g., Sarah, after years of picking-up her husband's underwear, applied to the Divorce Welfare System. With the benefits she receives, her boyfriend and her take frequent vacations. |
submitted by HC
brokizzle - A variation of "bro."
e.g., Hey, broskizzle, c'mere.
submitted by Asia
iron law of bureaucracy - Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
Iron Law of Bureaucracy
Or, restated:
. . . in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher, including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.
e.g., Reform is impossible once the Iron Law of Bureaucracy is in effect.
submitted by [Jerry Pournelle]
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galimatias - "Confused or unintelligible talk." Ran across while looking up synonyms for poppycock. {Duplicate.}
e.g., I've had enough of your galimatias, HD. Give it a rest.
submitted by Lillith
mammothrept - "A child brought up by its grandmother; a spoiled child." {Duplicate.}
e.g., We got along just fine -- until I found out that she was a mammothrept. | "The day I apologize to you, you contumacious mammothrept, there will be two moons in the sky." (Said by erudite misopede Samuel Marchbanks, aka Robertson Davies.)
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
zedonk - Offspring of a zebra and a donkey. {Duplicate.}
e.g., Mommy, can I have a zedonk for my birfday?
submitted by HD Fowler
eleepy - Extremely sleepy.
e.g., I am eleepy -- it's time for bed.
submitted by anan91666
sculpertecture - A mixture of sculpture and architecture.
e.g., That building is an example of neo-classical sculpertecture.
submitted by Calum
sycocophony - A cacophony of sycophancy. Sucking up, or brown-nosing on a large scale. Often involving many participants.
e.g., The BBC and Tabloid coverage of the Royal wedding was a sycocophony.
submitted by calum
donedamonious - A task that required new effort to complete.
e.g., My first submission to the pseudodictionary is donedamonious.
submitted by Phil Bradley
awesomascious - Something that is way beyond the ordinary and worthy of the highest praise. Awesomacious.
e.g., Steve's artwork is awesomascious.
submitted by Phil Bradley
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pseudo - Noun: PseudoDictionary entry. An entry in the pd, whether a word or phrase or essay . . . whatever.
e.g., Hey, you should make a pseudo out of that.
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
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lie-ability - The measure of how well someone tells a non-truth.
e.g., No matter how good you are at telling untruths, eventually, having superior lie-ability can end up being a liability.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
dwarves trap - A spellchecker that catches dwarves as a misspelling for the plural of dwarf.
e.g., No, I'm not often injured by a dwarves trap. Once the word dwarf became politically incorrect, I've done my best to avoid it -- so I don't have much need for its plural.
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
imdb - As a verb: To look up someone in the Internet Movie Data Base.
e.g., Some whippersnapper thought Kevin James belonged on a short list of the greatest comedians ever? Kevin James? Who the hell is Kevin James? I IMDbed him and found out he was the male lead in King of Queens, his main claim to fame. More recently he's made some not-so-good movies. Yeah, right. One of the greatest comedians ever. Sure he is.
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
acridmonious - Describing the disgustingly pungent and bitter taste left in one's mouth after enduring a whole election caampaign filled with a constant stream of dirty character assassination, vile mud-slinging, blatant lies, cleverly distorted facts and slimy hyperbole from one candidate.
e.g., Please excuse me. I have to run to the bathroom sink and gargle my mouth out with mouthwash. I just watched a rerun of the 2012 election campaign highlights, and that pig slop is making me feel real acridmonious!
submitted by Charlie Lesko
archistract - A concept, philosophy, and classification of fine art photography that focuses on the abstract qualities of various architectural styles and subjects using monochrome or colour compositions while highlighting patterns, forms, geometry, and gradations of light and shadows. "Archistract" is a portmanteau of the words "architecture" and "abstract." It is a style of abstract and architectural photography that has recently evolved into a cohesive and functional vision combining elements and traditions found in abstract art, architecture, and photography as a whole.
e.g., This archistract is a fine example of how architecture can be photographed in an abstract way.
submitted by John Kosmopoulos - (www)
straw sound, the - The gurgling sound made when you're drinking a soda through a straw and the cup nears empty.
e.g., (HD makes the straw sound.) She: "Do you know what that means in Oklahoma? HD (from Arkansas): "No, what?" She: "It means it's empty." Fifty years later, she still has a smart mouth and gigs me whenever I give her a chance.
submitted by HD Fowler
submitted by
plus-sized - Fat.
e.g., Chris isn't plus-sized. She's fat.
submitted by HD Fowler
skippizza - Cold leftover pizza spread with peanut butter (trust me, it's delicious).
e.g., You can take the pepperoni slices for lunch tomorrow, but I want the plain ones for skippizza.
submitted by jeanine wisniewski - (www)
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balogna-way - Describing the feeling of being very impressed with a delicatessen's selection of cold-cuts.
e.g., I couldn't believe how many different kinds of cold-cuts stocked at the corner deli. balogna-way.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
febuary - How February ought to be spelled so it wouldn't be so hard to pronounce.
e.g., Today is February 10, 2013.
submitted by HD Fowler
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blearghy - Of a condition often caused by drinking during a celebratory evening. One wakens with a somewhat throbbing head, eyes watering, a slight lump in the throat, a mildly sour stomach, and, sometimes, a non-gravity caused heaviness, with trembling, in the outer extremities. The word also relates to symptoms from an onset of a flu-like illness, or, less severely, a malaise due to a period of personal fatigue or depression. Think having the blahs.
e.g., From Alphabets Blog: "Have not been able to view Alphabets for weeks now. Not because the internet connection isn't working or anything like that - its just that I have been feeling blearghy and in need for a change. Was almost tempted to delete everything and start anew but then thought better of it . . . after all those early alphabet days were really fun."
submitted by Machiavellean & Lesko - (www)
submitted by
soft-white - (n.) 1. a light bulb coated inside with a glaze that distributes the light produced over the whole of the interior surface as opposed to clear glass, which allows the eye-searing arc of the tungsten filament to burn itself into your cornea; 2. a day characterized by sufficient cloud cover to distribute sunlight over the whole sky: a much more pleasant, even light than the blinding, hyperphotonic torrent of multi-Geiger wavicle rounds fired at us by the neverending fusion bomb that rules the Solar system. [From GE's "soft-white light bulbs."]
e.g., I much prefer soft-white days to those days when I have to squint at my desk (the computer screen is just matchlight to lightning strike, and I can't even see it) and walk around with one of those blue after-images of the sun burned into my retinas.
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
humbuggery - (noun). It's a real word and it means exactly the same thing as humbug. Humbugger.
e.g., The recent change to the AP Stylebook entry for illegal immigration is Orwellian humbuggery, worthy of the best glossocrats.
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
political epithet -
submitted by HD Fowler
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ringxiety - "Michael Quinion » World Wide Words Newsletter: 9 Feb 2013: "Phantom vibration syndrome is the Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year 2012. This is a form of technological anxiety, sometimes called ringxiety (ring + anxiety) in which mobile phone users with an obsessional fear of missing incoming calls become convinced that the phone has vibrated to indicate a call when it hasn�t."
e.g., Turn off your cell phone while you're visiting, dear. I don't want it disturbing our dinner and conversation. . . . Say what? That will just exacerbate your ringxiety? Live with it, Waldo. Otherwise, I'll take you out of my will. . . . No, it's not an idle threat. It's not as if I'm your mother telling you I'll ground you for life for misbehaving. I'm your grandmother. We haven't been around each other long enough for me to bond with you to a great extent. . . . No, it's not that I don't love you. I do -- I just don't love you very much. Live with it. It would take only a stroke of the pen for me to reduce your inheritance from £75,000 to zero -- and increase your cousin Winston's by the same amount.
submitted by Lillith - (www)
applord - To show strong approval or praise of that which God has done by applauding -- that is, by clapping your hands together.
e.g., The preacher urged his flock to applord God's many miracles.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
submitted by
congrouchulations - Used when giving folks insincere good wishes when something special or pleasant happens to them.
e.g., Sure he commended me on winning the sales award, but -- you could tell by his tone that he was actually offering congrouchulations -- NOT congratulations.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
submitted by
implaqueable - Describing teeth that, no matter how poorly oral hygeine is maintained, are impervious to plaque and decay.
e.g., Despite the fact that he hardly brushes, and never flosses, Ned hasn't had a single dental issue in more than 30 years. How's that possible? Easy -- Ned's teeth are implaqueable.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
co ear ce - An action intended to force an individual to desist from, or comply with, an activity, by the pinching, twisting, or pulling on one of the two fleshy protuberances located on the opposite sides of one's head, and/or grabbing such protuberance, and yelling, loudly, into the hollow space containing one's audio input system.
e.g., Hilda: 'ey, 'arry, 'ow come ya got such 'orrible, ugly ears? Dey stick way out -- da tops are all crinkled, and if ya turned arould real quick, da lobes ud slap yer face!
submitted by Charlie Lesko
scaddywad - A heapin' pile, an excess, way more than necessary.
e.g., Hun, I'mo eatta scaddywad uv yer tamales when thur dun.
submitted by steve zihlavsky
groovesque - Descriptive of things modeled after or splattered with maximum groove.
e.g., Watchin' you dance to the BeeGees made me know just how groovesque you are, girl.
submitted by steve zihlavsky
groovo-graph - A visual aid tool used to describe the flavor of things groovesque and trippindicular in a rainbow display.
e.g., You don't understand your groovo-graph since you went all "wall street," do you?
submitted by steve zihlavsky
purpendicular - Opposite mellow yellow on the groovo-graph.
e.g., Man,... that was pretty mindblowing on the purpendicular side.
submitted by steve zihlavsky
ecton - The building block of ectoplasm.
e.g., "Hey, Dave, check out these ectons under the microscope at x400,000,000,000." "Pretty rancid stuff, Steve."
submitted by steve zihlavsky
men strafe - A condition that causes a husband to be especially cautious around his wife, on a monthly basis.
e.g., Joe: What's up, Barry? This is the third night in a row that you've been here at the bowling alley. Barry: I've been trying to stay away from home, for awhile. It's Sally's time of the month, and she's starting to men strafe.
submitted by Charlie Lesko
jangolapi - (Rhymes with song-guh-poppy; adj.) 1. Betting everything; 2. Putting it all on the line; 3. Going for broke; 4. "In for a penny, in for a pound"; 5. Absolutely committed; (v.) 5. Go for broke!; 6. Let it ride!; (n.) 7. A challenge to an all-or-nothing contest; 8. A 100% commitment; (interj.) 8. "All or nothing!" "Sydney or the bush!" (That last one's from Charles Schultz's Peanuts, back in ... what, 1968?).
e.g., "The enemy's dug in, and, man for man, we're outnumbered. What do you think? Captain Fitz?"
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
sentstarters - A spoonerism derived from sentence + starters. This subspecies of severely disordered grammaticians either often or always fail to capitalize the first letters of sentences that they write. | A person who uses either the wrong punctuation in a written sentence, or in terminal cases, no punctuation at all.
e.g., I get so tired of having to deal with all these sentstarters whilst in the proceedings of my forays into the Internet.
submitted by Trahvagen
capzer - From Caps Lock, which is often employed by Capzers to write their horribly incorrect posts. A person who either writes everything in upper case letters, or everything in lower case letters. This is usually (but not always) a phenomenon isolated to posts/e-mails on the Internet. See entry for "sentstarters," which are a similar species of disordered grammaticians.
e.g., Intentionally or accidentally, Capzers are still either incredibly rude by yelling with all caps, or simply sloppy in their keyboarding.
submitted by Trahvagen
hypobelt - From hypocrite shortened to hypo, with "belt" tacked on in reference to the Bible Belt. This spoonerism (a combination of two or more words) is a term that is used for people who make either public or private statements saying that (insert object / action here) is alright and kosher, when that person's statement is contradictory to the philosophies or beliefs of their own religion that they profess to adhere to.
e.g., "Followers of the LDS religion will almost instantly see people who proclaim themselves to be LDS for the hypobelts they are if they do not seem to even know what that religion teaches, for they make statements that run counter to their religion. For example, an LDS therapist recently stated that masturbation is a perfectly righteous practice. Another example is that there are several lesbian/gay people who claim to be LDS adherents, regardless of the fact that the LDS religion preaches against homosexuality.
submitted by Trahvagen
hags - Noun, abbreviation (to be taken seriously) - Stands for "Have A Great Summer." Often used by high school students at the end of a school year while signing yearbooks. This is sometimes accompanied by the joking abbreviation BAGS, which stands for "Buy A Giraffe." (No one knows what the "S" in BAGS is supposed to stand for.) | Lower-cased, hags: gross, nasty.
e.g., This year was awesome! Take care! I'll see you next year, and be sure to HAGS! | "See that woman over there -- the one with the moles all over her face and the hair on her back? Pretty hags, isn't she? Especially with the hairs coming through the moles on her back." "Don't recognize her do you? That's Lillith, Editrix Extraordinaire for the PseudoDictionary."
submitted by Trahvagen | meredith abbott
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gingerivitus - A lively lady named Ginger.
e.g., Max introduced us to his new friend from a double date. She giggled and danced as we tried to shake hands. Max calls her Gingervitus.
submitted by Frank Mandriota
lipochondriac - A person who's so deathly afraid of gaining weight that (s)he's always at the plastic surgeon for liposuction maintenance.
e.g., Sure Mary's always looking slim. She's a lipochondriac.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
genre hacking - Breaking the rules of a given literary or artistic genre while conspicuously using the distinctive elements of that genre.
e.g., The author is genre hacking when his story uses monsters and incites fear, clearly horror, but the story is really about love and disappointment.
submitted by Asher Black - (www)
emo horror - A sub-genre of horror fiction that focuses on the horrible in unhappy emotional qualities like sadness, grief, regret, breaking, neglect, misfortune, etc. Plots resolve not so much with triumph (or its failure) over monsters or horrible people, but with resolution (or its failure) of emotional horror itself.
e.g., This story is emo horror, because it starts with sadness and ends with sadness; the monsters are optional.
submitted by Asher Black - (www)
amazgraz - An uncommon abbreviation for "Amazing Grace." Used for the well-known spiritual song, often sung at religious gatherings. It is pronounced phonetically. It has sometimes been known to be used as a sweet nickname for a female partner. Developed during the late 18th century by romance novelists of the period, the word lives on today, albeit more rarely spoken. Some claim it to have been originally conceived by the composer of "Amazing Grace," John Newton, to describe his wife, Mary Catlett.
e.g., I hear we're going to be singing "amazgraz" again this week. Man, I love that tune. | You're my amazgraz.
submitted by John Wilson
frhetoric - Used when Fred speaks or writes effectively.
e.g., That speech that Fred wrote and delivered was so terrific that I'm renaming him Frhetoric.
submitted by Mitchel Yerzy - (www)
lite erary - Pertaining to publications (i.e., short novels, short stories, magazine articles, etc.) that are written to briefly divert or amuse the reader, rather than educate, enlighten, engage, confront, puzzle, excite, or enrage him.
e.g., Hmmm. I've got an evening free without work from the office, Anne's at her mother's, I'm tired of watching T.V., burned out from blogging, don't want to keep slogging through Tolstoy -- just want to relax.
submitted by Charlie Lesko
avasty - (adj.) Of or pertaining to things related to (1) pirates and piracy or (2) sailing and sailing ships.
e.g., Orlando Bloom is not quite as avasty as the ... um ... other guy in Pirates of the Caribbean: um ... Johnny Depp. Who else is avasty?: Captain Hook and Mister Smee (the Hoffman/Hoskins team). But there's also Anne Bonney, Calico Jack, Edward Teach, Stede Bonnet, Edward Low of the horrible scar, and the fictional Long John Silver. All very avasty. [From "avast," a nautical term meaning "hold fast," "stop what you're doing," "belay that."]
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
knotical - (Rhymes with HOT-sickle; adj.) Of or pertaining to sailors' knots (particularly those involved in the running of so-called 'tall ships'---the sort with sails ("sheets"), belaying pins, orders to "reef" and "furl," deck swabbing, and lines of huge, unwieldy, iron cannon, port and starboard, that you load with an iron ball, black powder, and a ramrod.
e.g., Boy and Girl Scouts often spend a great deal of time on things knotical ... but I'm not certain anyone uses them, except for shoe-tying bow knots, square knots, the occasional slip knot, and nooses (some people can tie nooses, and some of them really creep me out). Think about it: I was a boy scout in the 70s, but I have never had to tie a sheepshank. I can tie a number of necktie knots, but they have nothing to do with anything particularly avasty (q.v.).
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
inemployed - Employed in household activities without any remuneration.
e.g., Geetha is inemployed at home.
submitted by J. Ajith Kumar - (www)
temperor - (n.) Someone who controls (or believes themselves to control) others through fear of (sometimes spectacular) tantrums. [Feminine "tempress"; not to be confused with "temptress," which is something else entirely.]
e.g., One of the archetypes in modern literature is the tempress dowager: the older woman who is a screeching harpy toward the younger ingenue heroine.
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
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scrumpts -
Bits and pieces, leavings, scraps -- specifically, table scraps. Elsewhere, you're likely to find scrumpts defined the same as scrumptious:
If you're a word lover, do yourself a favor and subscribe to Michael Quinion's World Wide Words Newletter here.
Scraps, Via Michael Quinion at main link.
The Rice University Neologisms Database offers scrumpt as being a building block for both scrumptious and scrumptulescent. Heads up: Remember the warnings we give you repeatedly about being careful taking seriously what you find here? The same caution is useful for other "dictionaries" for neologisms, made-up words, and slang. Contributors at such sites are less likely to be scrupulous and scholarly than those who provide input to serious sites. {Duplicate.}
e.g., "Will you be wanting to date Letitia if I dump her." "No, I won't. I'm not interested in your scrumpts. Besides, you won't be dumping her -- she dumped you. Who do you think you're kidding?"
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
hom bray - A male politician; especially one who is a loudmouth member of the Democrat Party.
e.g., Only empty promises and words without meaning. Talk! Talk! Talk! Yak! Yak! Yak! Heehaw! Heehaw! Heehaw! It takes a real men-sshh to make a hom bray shut up!
submitted by Charlie Lesko
yestoday - An affirmation of the present, living in the moment.
e.g., Let yesterday stay in the past, and choose instead to say yestoday.
submitted by jeanine wisniewski
glammo - (n.) A woman's arsenal of dresses, shoes, earrings, nose rings, hairpins, necklaces, chokers, bracelets, anklets, flowers, perfumes, powders, liners, and blushes with which to draw the eye and please the senses. [From Glamour + Ammo (i.e., ammunition).]
e.g., "Where's the glammo list in Isaiah, again?"
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
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firstname.lastname@example.com - You have my blessings to spam this spammer.
submitted by Jane Gimbal - (www)
reciprocution - The act of retaliatorily, quid pro quo ala sadomasochismistically, or two fools acting normally shock another for the same, using a/c power under 200v or d/c power at least 12v but not exceeding 199v.
e.g., So my boss flipped the breaker while I was wiring up the security lights and threw me off the ladder, so . . . I cut the cord off the box fan that was cooling him, split and stripped it, and, with it still plugged in, shoved one end in each of his nostrils. Reciprocution at its finest.
submitted by steve zihlavsky
catfish - To develop "a fake online persona with the express purpose of deceiving a love-struck significant other." | Catfish "keep other people active in life." | Wired.co.uk: "So it came as news to me to find out that catfish were once used to keep cod that were being transported large distances in good shape. A few of these natural predators were placed in tanks along with the live cod to ensure that they stayed agile and, as a result, their flesh remained tasty."
e.g., "What were you doing on your computer just now?" "Catfishing." "Catfishing? How can you do that on a computer? Is it an online game?" "Sort of." "Catch anything?" "No, but I got a couple of nibbles." | "Was Heisman Trophy finalist Manti T'eo catfish'd?" | "This is the craziest, most amazing, unbelievable, insane story you will read today. You have to go read the entire thing for yourself, but the gist of it is that Kekua never existed and all the details of her car accident, sickness, death, and relationship with Te'o were fabricated. Te'o's family never met Kekua and Notre Dame and Te'o both insist Te'o was a victim of a sick hoax. If this is true Wow. Catfish "
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
gee-whoppered - To be busted, bent, or knocked out of alignment. To be caught off guard and thrown for a loop.
e.g., That whirlwind gee-whoppered me so hard that it was a minute before I knew which way was up.
submitted by Steve McDonald
thatcher's girls - Prostitutes. From Michael Quinion: "Thatcher�s girls, from northern England, briefly appeared around 1985 to mean prostitutes, applied so it was asserted because her policies had driven many women to the only way left open to them to earn money." Definition-Of: "British expression, coined in the 1980s, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's economic policies caused such widespread unemployment that the increase in the number of prostitutes, who defiantly called themselves 'Thatchers girls,' was significant."
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
rom-com - Film industry talk for romantic comedy. Romcom, romedy.
e.g., "Life of Pi, Ang Lee's adaptation of the Yann Martel Booker winner came in second with 11 nominations, four of them in major categories, while David O Russell's screwball rom-com Silver Linings Playbook won nominations in eight categories, seven of them major #151; with surprise nods for supporting actors Jacqui Weaver and Robert De Niro. Ben Affleck's Argo and Les Miserables, Tom Hooper's epic adaptation of the musical smash, trailed with seven."
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
infringe - To infringe is to encroach on a right or privilege or to violate. See.
Various synonyms for infringe:
e.g., Amendment II (1791):
submitted by HD Fowler
reached out to - Contacted, attempted to communicate with. Often seen as media jibber-jabber, apparently used to avoid using contact as a verb. Any prohibition against doing that is a zombie rule.
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
twatwaffle - The context of the first example is sufficient to determine that it's a substitute for idiot -- or a similar insult.
e.g., "[Rob] Parker is a jealous twatwaffle."
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
awkward transition period - The time that passes when changing from one state to another -- instantaneous or step changes not being what happens all the time. For convenience, let's say the transition period can be infinitesimally small or infinitely large.
e.g., As I've grown older I've wondered more and more about the awkward transition period between life and death. Surely that's where near-death experiences occur.
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
agoggery - The state of being agog -- enthralled: anxious, avid, breathless, eager, enthusiastic, excited, expectant, impatient, in suspense, on tenterhooks.
e.g., "So this week, as taxes went up for millions of Americans which Republicans predicted throughout the campaign would happen it was fun to watch the agoggery of the left."
submitted by HD Fowler - (www)
babliography - From the root words "babble" and "biography," a "babliography" is the random, babbling biography that a person creates and posts on social media sites such as Facebook in a desperate attempt to leave a mark of their passing this way, and to convince themselves and their readers that they have some relevance and significance in the world.
e.g., I have yet to find a babliography worth reading.
submitted by Kathleen Viens
smitching - Social media bitching. Smitch.
e.g., Smitch if you want to. Just remember this, especially if you're a high school student: There are consequences to smitching -- especially if you're smitching about obama and use racist terms.
submitted by [SonyaLynn @SonyaLynn]
coinensadince - Coincidence. At least that's what I thought the writer had in mind. Among the worst misspellings I've ever seen -- if not the very worst. From "The Racist Tweet War Against Obama Comes to New York."
e.g., "No, it's just a coinensadince." | "What a coinensadince. " | "Is it a coinensadince that he is racist AND stupid?" | I suppose you think it's just a coinensadince that Palin is an anagram of Alpin[e]. | "Certainly not a coinensadince that they have such an ignorant outlook." | "What a coinensadince that so many of those [
submitted by Miss Speller - (www)
oya-boya! - A strong exclamation indicating surprise, pleasure, pain, or any profound reaction to something. This is a naturally developed expression from the depths of my own mind, probably derived from the shorter expression "Oy!"
e.g., Oya-boya! What a fine, big set she's got.
submitted by Steve McDonald
no wopen - An unknown phrase, found on large, portable message boards, which were unearthed in digs on historic urban 21st century sites.
e.g., Archeologists, reporting on their findings of the digs on historic 21st century urban sites, found many large, outdoor message boards containing a mysterious phrase, "No wopen." More puzzling, the message was found not only on boards in front of commercial enterprises, but on boards in front of Houses of Worship, entertainment centers, eating establishments, and various places of social gathering, as well.
submitted by Charlie Lesko
fool's gold words - "[F]ool's gold words make us think [something] is automatically good." That comes from Hal Lillywhite's blog. Lillywhite's essay also gave me the idea for the first example; the second example comes from the linked essay. He writes further:
I first encountered the term "Fool's Gold Words" in John Chamberlain's introduction to the 1944 American edition of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom though I do not know if the term was original with him. He applied it to concepts such as full employment, economic pump priming, the good of the whole, the greatest good for the greatest number etc. However it also fits many buzz-words today.Chamberlain's review is also where I found the term.
e.g., Please spare me from doctors who insist on "practicing cutting edge medicine." Those are little but fool's gold words as far as I'm concerned -- especially when a doctor insists that I continue taking a "new drug" because it's more effective than tried-and-true older drugs. If the FDA suspects the new drug of having the unfortunate side effect of increasing the risk of bladder cancer (Actos) or pancreatic cancer (Byetta, Januvia, Victoza), I'll pass. If it means I have to find another doctor who will treat me a slightly less effective drug, with known side effects, so be it. | "Like witch words, fool's gold words will mislead us unless we are careful. We must learn to recognize and counteract them. Whenever a word or phrase short-circuits critical thinking we should be careful. When we recognize fool's gold words we should delve into their implications and see if there is evidence for those implications."
submitted by HD Fowler
badagi - Anything that's fat and blubbery, usually used in context of describing a person: a tease used among friends and family. The g is pronounced like a q but from the throat, basically the Arabic equivalent of qaaf.
e.g., Kyle has muscles, except they're on the bottom. Oh, you mean this bataqi stuff. *grabs hold of jiggling triceps*
submitted by rukia
virtuality - (n.) 1. The quality or state of being virtual (i.e., electronic, CG) rather than actual (i.e., physical, hardcopy, vel cet.); 2. Virtual reality: a place increasingly occupied by long-term tenants.
e.g., Oh, yes: he's conquered Asia 20 times at least! ... in virtuality. | It's become quite Platoesque: documents and drawings exist in virtuality; hardcopies are the derivatives now, mere instances of the ultimate document or drawing existing only in the 1s and 0s of computer memory.
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
geekity - (n.) 1. The quality or state of being a geek; 2. The proper form of address for a greatly talented, learned, or famous geek.
e.g., "You pretend to love her---I don't know, maybe you even believe you do---but, in reality, you are simply exploiting her Velma-esque geekity so as to live untroubled in the limbo of virtuality. She's a woman, not a patch." | GEEKITY, LIKE BEAUTY, BELONGS TO THE WORLD! | "Yes, your Geekity."
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
auntie bonus - A regular payment for travel -- even if you don't travel or if you stay with your aunt.
e.g., Do I also get an auntie bonus?
submitted by HD. Fowler
bedmail - (v.) 1. to blackmail someone by threatening to publish, expose, or otherwise reveal their sexual indiscretions; (n.) 2. The act of bedmailing someone; 3. The instrument of such bedmailing (e.g., note, letter, recording, video, skywriting, whatever); (adj.) 4. Of or pertaining to bedmail. [Analogy from "blackmail."]
e.g., In the Jeremy Brett/BBC Sherlock Holmes version of "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" (called in the show "the Master Blackmailer"), the focus is almost entirely on bedmail. | How much bedmail does James Bond carelessly leave behind him in his mad race to ensure that half of the next generation look like him?
submitted by Scott M. Ellsworth
orchidia - The condition of male emotional disturbance thought to be centered in the testicles (Greek "orches"). Comparable to female "hysteria."
e.g., That nutty Bob is out of control today! He's *absolutely orchiderical.
submitted by Mark Lee - (www)
submitted by
rkba - Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
e.g., "We in the RKBA community have spent countless hours and dollars attempting to educate the Hoplophobes. This is hopeless. It cannot be done. These poor folks have a condition known to the medical specialty of neurology as "anosognosia." That is: they don't know, and they don't know that they don't know. A sure sign of such a deplorable condition is that when education is attempted, the Hoplophobe responds with anger."
submitted by [Dr. Bill Rogers] - (www)
champagne socialist - A political term I ran across today that really intrigued me. Essentially the same as a limo|limousine liberal in the United States.
submitted by HD Fowler
anglotard - A stupid or uneducated English man. Behaving in a manner suggesting both stupidity and English origin.
e.g., The English countryside is littered with offensive anglotards. The deal was soured by his incessant anglotard rants.
submitted by Timothy Peach - (www)
submitted by
submitted by
submitted by
watchbird - A military droid, soon used for domestic law enforcement, as imagined by Robert Scheckley in his 1953 short story of the same title. Sheckley's tale (set in 2003) of technology gone wrong can be read in its entirety at the link provided. {Duplicate.}
e.g., "This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note."
"Despite being published in mainstream magazines like Playboy (which, in the past, took its fiction very seriously), Sheckley has usually been relegated to the genre ghetto, even if at an exalted level, and, yes, new readers will find, on occasion, genre tropes and clich�s that will tempt a dismissal. Characters are mostly just moving parts in the idea machine, distinguished solely by rudimentary emotions (eagerness, trepidation, fear), and at this point in your reading life, you may not savor overripe expressions like 'the cauldrons in which wars were brewed,' or need to be informed, as when a watchbird inexplicably appears to thwart an execution, that 'Prisons are large and strong, with many locked doors.' But banalities like these occur rarely, and as the reader progresses through the riotous absurdities, stunning moments of pathos, and some of the most compassionate tales of lost innocents (and innocence) to be found in science fiction, any complaints become merely quibbles. There's a thrilling cumulative effect as the worlds continue to deepen and elements cohere more seamlessly, and by the time we get to the superb final stories, terribly funny and moving tales of loneliness and desire, you can understand why Sheckley has often been compared to Voltaire."�
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
The Watchbird
When I was a little boy in the forties, the cartoon "The Watchbird" appeared in The Ladies Home Journal, a magazine to which my mother subscribed. The cartoon always featured a bad boy being observed by the Watchbird. The cartoonist would draw and describe the naughty, or whiney, or stingy bad boy being surveilled by the Watchbird, drawn in profile, the boy caught in the sinful act, and then the clincher would come. "This is the Watchbird watching a Sneaky." Named and shamed by his sin. A second bird would be drawn, facing the young reader. The heading read, "This is the Watchbird watching YOU!" Pediatric ethics 101 at the foot of The Ladies Home Journal.
What was always most interesting was the naughty activity, which provided the young reader a certain vicarious pleasure. The Watchbird was a simple line-drawn, fat little cartoon bird, peering at the offender and then at me. The assumption that we all bore close scrutiny at six or eight for our dirty little secrets was never really challenged in those days. My mother told me she occasionally spanked me with the hairbrush for no definable reason other than the gut feeling that I deserved it. She was probably right. She was a stay at home mum and probably knew far more than the Watchbird.
I don't think the cartoon had any lasting ethical benefit because even in those days, naughty was more interesting to watch than goody-two shoes. I guess it wasn't the enlightened child raising that we see today, but there was never a feeling that I was short changed in the love game. We are still under scrutiny today by Watchbirds of a different name.
Posted by jim at 2010-09-22 7:44 PM
submitted by [Robert Sheckley] - (www)
michele simplification - After struggling to remember how to spel parallel while I was in a near stupor earlier today, it occurred to me that we should just quit doubling l's in words. Make it paralel. Make it paralelogram. Make it -- anything but a word speled with double l's. Hel, at one point I managed to type in paralllel.
e.g., Why the l don't you just start using the Michele Simplification -- never use doubled l's when you spel a word. | I used the Michele Simplification when we came up with my daughter's middle name. Not only did it require one less letter to spel, it looked better with her given name and her surname. Thought went into not just the name selection for her, but into what speling to use. | Now that my daughter is married and using the same surname as her husband, it might be that speling her middle name with two l's would look better. She's over eighteen, so the choice hers. Given that she's always loved her name, including the speling, I doubt that she'l be making a change.
submitted by HD Fowler
lesnerize - "It represents the ultimate fear of not knowing what it is you need to avoid doing. Well, I'm pretty confident that, whatever the cultural differences between me and the Korean administration and clientele at my new school, I'm not lesnerizing."
"Whatever you do, don't Lesnerize!" |
"The trouble is, I don't have any idea what lesnerizing might be. A common human action, the derg had said. Well, for the time, I'm avoiding as many actions as possible.
"I've caught up on some back sleep and nothing happened, so that's not lesnerizing. I went out and bought food, paid for it, cooked it, ate it. That wasn't lesnerizing. I wrote this report. That wasn't lesnerizing.
"I'll come out of this yet.
"I'm going to catch a nap. I think I have a cold coming on. Now I have to sneez
"The End
"� 1956 by Robert Sheckley. First published in Galaxy, April 1956." |
"Well, that was an odd one. It made me think about some of the ridiculous warning labels you sometimes see. Am I to take it from the ending that lesnerizing is the same thing as sneezing?" |
"I have this peculiar fear of doing something I shouldn't be doing -- could I be lesnerizing?" "No. It's just that you're married now. Such fear is normal for a newly married man." |
"The protagonist of 'Protection' is reassured that he is safe, unless of course he dares to lesnerize, but no one will tell him what that constitutes. Here is a theme that resonates in the sf community, rich as it is in socially challenged types who never know when they'll be punished for violating unspoken rules everyone else is aware of. I myself often fear that I am about to lesnerize, or have already done so. (Another sf treatment of this theme appears in Greg Egan's Distress, whose narrator finds himself in the Kafkaesque position of being kicked out of a Relationship for two crimes, the second of which is ignorance of the first.)" |
"Contact with the derg has also opened the narrator up to other dangers. There�s the gamper, the grailers, the feegs, the leeps, which can be warded off with things like mistletoe and graveyard mold and keeping the closet door closed, but and worst of all, the thrang, which can only be eliminated if the narrator does not lesnerize. Problem is, the thrang gets the derg before it can define lesnerize, so the narrator is left alone, his actions reduced to eating and sleeping, afraid that anything more ambitious might cause his doom. It's all great fun, but it's the derg's sigh that elevates 'Protection' to something approaching tragedy; Sheckley's is a universe when even dergs are slaves to their nature and weary from the inexplicable rules of existence. A friend I showed this story to got it exactly backwards when he said, "It's good, but he�s no Douglas Adams.'" |
There'll be an airplane crash in Burma next week, but it shouldn't affect me here in New York. And the feegs certainly can't harm me. Not with all my closet doors closed.
No, the big problem is lesnerizing. I must not lesnerize. Absolutely not. As you can imagine, that hampers me.
And to top it all, I think I'm catching a really nasty cold.
The whole thing started on the evening of November seventh. I was walking down Broadway on my way to Baker's Cafeteria. On my lips was a faint smile, due to having passed a tough physics exam earlier in the day. In my pocket, jingling faintly, were five coins, three keys, and a book of matches.
Just to complete the picture, let me add that the wind was from the northwest at five miles an hour, Venus was in the ascendancy and the moon was decidedly gibbous. You can draw your own conclusions from this.
I reached the corner of 98th Street and began to cross. As I stepped off the curb, someone yelled at me, "The truck! Watch the truck!"
I jumped back, looking around wildly. There was nothing in sight. Then, a full second later, a truck cut around the corner on two wheels, ran through the red light and roared up Broadway. Without the warning, I would have been hit. |
"I couldn't really tell you what the talk was about. After all, I was pretty high, and I've never bothered to master a lot of the standard human concepts. Roughly speaking, it seemed like Jack thought he could prove that every possible universe exists. Considering my background, you'd think I'd be interested in what he might have to say on this topic . . . but you'd be wrong. I just wanted to lesnerize a couple of people and get the hell back to the Pure Land. . . . I couldn't stop myself from shlubbering out, 'I want to lesnerize you.' Why did I have to go and tip my hand like that, a part of my mind wondered bleakly. Helen had jumped to her feet, and when I slid to the floor I could see her shiny black underwear. It took the full force of my will to keep from beginning to rave in the mother tongue. . . . A 'Venusian's' mission on Earth is to reproduce by lesnerization, and then return to the Pure Land. Once enough of us have done this, there will be a web of consciousness connecting our universe and yours, and we will be able to draw the two closer together so that even the weak and diseased members of our race can move freely between 'Venus' and the Earth. Several members of my swarm have completed successful missions, and they have described to me in detail what it is like to have the sort of multiple trans-universal consciousness which Jack and Helen were puzzling out. . . . 'I can't believe this,' Jack said desperately. He ripped the top off another beer from the icebox. He'd left his first one by the werble, and he was scared to get close to me. He sat down on the kitchen chair. 'I'll watch,' he said shakily, 'But I'm not going to let you lesnerize us.' . . . I should have taken them then and there . . . but lesnerization goes a lot smoother if the human hosts are completely willing. It's a simple operation. You just run a pseudopod up the person's nose, suck out their brain, and fill their head up with part of your bodymass. Over the next year, your offspring slowly absorbs all of the host body, learning how to model it in the process. It's the way we've always reproduced on Earth. When we fission like this, we have to split off two buds . . . baby 'Venusians' . . . so we always have to lesnerize two people at once." |
"Neither of you must lesnerize for at least the first ten years of your relationship, starting form you first date; If either of you do, it will end badly in an incident involving cheese and some kind of transportation device." |
"Either way, do practice safe sex, and lesnerise at least once a day." |
"This monstah is known as a 'feeg.' It appears in a story by Robert Sheckley called 'Protection.' In the story a man sells his soul to the Devil who says he cannot collect unless the man 'lesnerizes,' but the Devil never tells the man what 'lesnerizing' is. Turns out that 'lesnerizing' is, uh, sneezing. In the story the feegs are what lurks in the closet which is why you have to keep the closet doors closed at all times." |
Lesnerizing is much less common in science fiction and fantasy, than everyday life. While some characters have adverse reactions to magic, truth drugs, or dishwashing detergent with lemon, most characters never seem to suffer from food allergies, allergies to cats or wool or other animals or animal fibers, or exposure to poison ivy or other often-adverse-reaction-causing plants. When writers include allergies, why are they doing it -- how much of it is to make the character seem more 'real,' how much is for some particular plot effect in the story, where the character's sneezing is important, or the wizard melts away with a bucket of detergent dumped on him? Do readers appreciate it, not appreciate it, or not care when characters' weaknesses include allergies?" |
"There is also the unlucky sneeze. . . . I had forgotten about the sneeze. . . . the protagonist (who is also the narrator) is warned not to lesnerize." |
"All I can say is nobody better sneeze around here or all hell will break loose. . . . Kip, of course, will take seriously the warning not to lesnerize." |
submitted by [Robert Sheckley]
useful idiots -
To be a useful idiot is to see what you want to see and refuse to believe your lying eyes. |
"Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin reportedly considered Communist sympathizers in the West 'useful idiots.' Today the term is used to describe naive people who are 'perceived as propagandists for a cause whose goals they do not understand, and who are used cynically by the leaders of the cause.'" |
BBC World Service | Documentaries | "Useful Idiots": "Useful idiots, in a broader sense, refers to Western journalists, travellers and intellectuals who gave their blessing -� often with evangelistic fervour -� to tyrannies and tyrants, thereby convincing politicians and public that utopias rather than Belsens thrived. . . . 'I was taken around and shown things as a useful idiot . . . that's what my role was. I can't understand why I was so gullible.' . . . How can intellectual curiosity transform into active promotion of a dangerous lie? Why so many 'useful idiots'?" |
Paul Roebling | "Why Are Liberals Called Useful Idiots?" "'Useful Idiots' is a pejorative term that was used by the Soviets to describe Soviet sympathizers in Western countries and in the United States in particular. It is thought that the Soviet leader Lenin was the first to use the term and it was used by the Soviets for many years to ridicule misguided Americans who were willing to take the Soviet/Marxist side against their own country. Some say that today the term 'useful idiots' can be used to describe those who support a malignant cause which they na�vely believe to be a force for good. This is an attempt on the part of liberals to deflect the label of 'useful idiots' from themselves. Thus we have hippie/Marxist liberals saying that the term 'useful idiots' was used by the Soviets to refer to American capitalists and not the hippie/Marxist liberal supporters of communism. Well, American liberals operate under the rules provided by the Marxist Saul Alinsky, who said that any means were justified to bring about Marxism in the United States. So, if the hippie/Marxist liberals say that capitalists were the 'useful idiots' to which the Soviets referred, then this lie is justified, and the more often the lie is repeated, the greater the number of weak-minded and uninformed individuals that will believe the lie." |
There's more than a little doubt that Lenin ever used the term, the following perhaps being as close as he came: "Nowhere has the Versailles Treaty been analyzed so well as in the book by Keynes, a British representative at Versailles. In his book Keynes ridicules Wilson and the part he played in the Treaty of Versailles. Here, Wilson proved to be an utter simpleton, whom Clemenceau and Lloyd George twisted round their little fingers." |
William Safire | On Language | April 12, 1987: "Here is what Mr. Annenkov claims he copied from notes in Lenin's handwriting, italics in the original: 'To speak the truth is a petit-bourgeois habit. To lie, on the contrary, is often justified by the lie's aim. The whole world's capitalists and their governments, as they pant to win the Soviet market, will close their eyes to the above-mentioned reality and will thus transform themselves into men who are deaf, dumb and blind. They will give us credits . . . they will toil to prepare their own suicide.'
"Look, I know it's a little farfetched. I would be a lot happier with a photocopy of the original Lenin notes, but such proof is not readily available, and no explosion of glasnost in Moscow is going to allow Western scholars on-site inspection of all of Lenin's notes. However, this gives us one clue about the source of the 'sell us the rope' attribution, and the 'deaf, dumb, and blind' phrase may be one of the phrases that helped start the 'useful idiots,' whether or not originally by Lenin. This investigation needs more work, and we can hope it will be put on the agenda of the next summit."
Twitchy headline: "Bill Richardson and Eric Schmidt visit North Korea; Sen. John McCain calls them 'useful idiots.'" |
"The Mental Illness Of Useful Idiots": "So there you have it: 'The common interest before self-interest.' That is the spirit of Hitler's program.
"Doesn't this sound like the high moral ground that international socialists continue to claim? It's the morality of collectivism that unites world's useful idiots -- the lazy, the helpless, and the useless -- against the smart, the productive, the self-sustaining. This morality doesn't have to be rational, just, or sustainable -- as long as it warms your heart with feel-good notions and boosts your adrenaline, turning you into a self-righteous zealot convinced that the end justifies the means." |
Hernando Today: "Vladimir Lenin is reputed to have coined the phrase 'useful idiots' to describe those in the West who acted as apologists for the political brutality and economic failure of Soviet Communism. The phrase kept coming to mind as I watched the so-called 'occupiers' marching in various cities across the country." |
Mark Alexander | "Populist Socialism on the Rise": "The intellectually challenged Occupy morons have built their movement around the errant assertion that if the assets of the 1 Percent were redistributed, everyone would live happily ever after. Unfortunately, what the 35 Percenters really want is 'redistributive justice,' Obama's euphemism for socialism, which would actually require the redistribution of income from the other 65 percent of American families who live on earned income, so that everyone could be equally impoverished.
"However, there's a problem with liquidating the assets of the 1 Percent (comprised of more celebs and pro athletes than Wall Street bankers), or even the top 25 percent of income earners: Most of their assets are on paper, and the rest of that 'wealth' is in the form of small businesses and real property that support the jobs of tens of millions of Americans who, unlike the Occupy crowd, actually work for a living -- and take pride in their occupations." |
Islam's Useful Idiots: "This new generation of useful idiots also live in liberal democracies, but serve the cause of Islamofascism -- another virulent form of totalitarian ideology." |
Doug Patton | Tuesday, October 18, 2011: "Vladimir Lenin is reputed to have coined the phrase 'useful idiots' to describe those in the West who acted as apologists for the political brutality and economic failure of Soviet Communism. The phrase kept coming to mind as I watched the so-called 'occupiers' marching in various cities across the country.
"Direct references to Lenin�s use of the term are scarce, the most authoritative being lawyer, newspaperman, and author Ernest Cuneo, who wrote in 1969 that Lenin, in his farewell to his followers, said: 'Take your example from the good housewife who finds use for even a broken shoestring. A good Communist finds use for everything, and nothing is more useful than a useful idiot.'
"Cueno went on to opine: 'The number of useful idiots who have unwittingly served the Communist cause since then speaks well for the diligence of Lenin�s disciples.'" |
Metapedia: "Useful idiots are usually afraid to think for themselves or question anything outside of the line parroted in the controlled media.
"The phrase was first used by Jewish mass murderer Vladimir Lenin. His useful idiots were going to help him conquer the world, but illness and death caught up with him first. In the event Joseph Stalin carried on where he left off. Uncle Joe was not an idiot but he was very effective as a mass murderer.
"There are people and sources who claim that Lenin did not originate the expression. The Wikipedia is one such. However Wikiquote gives a series of Lenin quotes which tell us of an unrelenting savagery which makes it seem entirely likely." |
Usefulidiots.com: "Useful idiots is a name that no group of people would like to be called. It is however, what most Americans are relied upon to be by the powers that be. When the voting segment of our country fails to vote to stay free and instead allows itself to fall for the same old word games and mind manipulation, they sadly earn the title of useful idiots. In contemporary America, too many Americans are naive about their political "system" and its politicians. Therefore, we are as a people, where we are, because we allow it. You see, America is a land of plenty, plenty of food, plenty of money, plenty of gods, plenty of corrupt politicians and alas, plenty of useful idiots that repetively vote for them.
"America is also a land of plenty of mindless indifference towards the useful idiots and where their misguided votes are taking all of us. If this was of no consequence to the rest of America we could laugh at the idiocy; however, much in every way, we are impacted. Therefore, this site was created to identify the idiocy, explain it and seek to end it. We hope we can awaken some people to their errant ways by challenging them to see how arrogant politicians exploit their inadvertent "idiocy" and as a result, motivate them to reject the idiot's role once and for all.
"We have observed that the conversion of the public consensus from dependency on God, self and family to dependency upon socialism is accomplished through incrementally rearranging how Americans view themselves and their place in the world. This systematic approach succeeds as long as it is done step by step via skillful propaganda in conjunction with an effectual dumbing down of the American people; these changes are accepted when done slowly.
"While we are not necessarily conspiracy adherents, we can't help but see obvious patterns emerging to some of our government's focus and draw logical conclusions. Toward that end, our main purpose is to reveal the motive and process of these changes and to cause the alarm and healthy rational fear and skepticism needed to stop the socialism and the corrosive thinking behind it before it ruins our country."
submitted by HD Fowler
- That dude was a little prick, but he did a fine job of making the Superfriends look like the square, hokey, boring, fist-resting-on-hips, knobs that they were. Did they ever make a Mxyzpltlk for the new Justice League? I like Justice League! Way different from their '80s counterparts. I just wish I had more time to watch it. 10 Amusing Collective Nouns Examples of Collective Nouns 1. A cuddle of teddy bears 2. A conjunction of grammarians 3. A promise of barmen 4. An obeisance of servants 5. A staff of employees 6. A fraid of ghosts 7. A nastiness of villains 8. A promise of tomorrows 9. A prudence of vicars 10. A clique of photographers http://wordsilove.org/archives/115/vag/
Well, it�s hard to teach wit - but all of us can learn the next best thing: the approximation of it by obfuscation, i.e. using big, difficult, and obscure words. So, to do our part in improving the quality of insults on teh Interweb, Neatorama has come up with a list of 10 Insulting Words You Should Know:
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dog whistle - I've been hearing this used as a political buzzword for quite a while and finally decided to check its meaning. Wikipedia » "Dog-whistle politics":Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The phrase is only ever used as a pejorative, because of the inherently deceptive nature of the practice and because the dog-whistle messages are frequently themselves distasteful, for example by empathizing with racist attitudes. It is an analogy to dog whistles, which are built in such a way that their high-frequency whistle is heard by dogs, but is inaudible to humans."
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stultiloquent - Given to, or characterized by, silly talk; babbling. {Duplicate.}
e.g., It's not just that HD's stultiloquent, it's that he's so pleased with himself at being so. Pleased as punch, he is.
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old person - Mother, father, grandmother, grandmother, aunt, uncle. . . .
e.g., Old person: Go do your homework. You: Mer.
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upmwl - Untrained Puny-Minded Weak Liberals. Is there any other kind?
e.g., "Alva forgot that, in our definition of Hitler in the People's Glossary we had set a strict rule stipulating that 'any such discussions should only be allowed to Party-approved professors of progressive science,' so that untrained puny-minded weak liberals (UPMWL) wouldn't trespass into an ideological minefield and blow up the carefully constructed progressive defenses -- which is what Alva just did, being the aforementioned UPMWL.
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fishead - A person obsessed with fish.
e.g., When it comes to Bear Lake, Bryce is a fishead.
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peckerwood - "Peckerwood (or simply Wood) is a pejorative slang term coined in the 19th century by southern Black Americans to describe poor whites. Blacks saw blackbirds as a symbol of themselves, and the woodpecker as a representation of working class whites. They considered them loud and troublesome like the bird, often with red hair similar to the bird's red plumes. This word is still widely used by southern blacks to refer to southern whites." That's the start of the entry at Wikipedia, less the hyperlinks. While that may be the definition peckerwood started out with, I know it was used with a different connotation when I was growing up. The sense of the word I got was that it was a substitute for pissant or something similar.
e.g., Mom: I can't find HD anywhere in the house. Has that little peckerwood gone down again the street to play with . . . who? Annette? Little HD: I'm under the picnic table, Mommy. I'm using it to make a tent. . . . Annette's not home.
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pecksniff - A pious fraud, The word comes from Dickens' Seth Pecksniff character in Martin Chuzzlewit. Pecksniffery, pecksniffian, Pecksniffianism, pecksniffish, Pecksniffism. Wordnik doesn't have a definition for Pecksniff yet, but several examples from The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewith have been added -- including some I've added below.
e.g., Curiously, this is one of Bill O'Reilly's favorite words, the man being somewhat of a Pecksniff himself. |
Our most recently revealed political Pecksniff: Mike Crapo. | "Chris Matthews: Pecksniff"
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zemblanity - orarian at Wordnik: "The opposite of serendipity, the faculty of making unhappy, unlucky, and unexpected discoveries by design; the inexorable discovery of what we don't what to know. Word derived from Zembla, a barren, frigid Artic island -- Nova Zembla -- the site of a nuclear facility now used for testing non-nuclear explosives.
-Peter Bowler May 5, 2008 |
e.g., "When Serendipity becomes Zemblanity," by Richard Boyle: "Although zemblanity doesn�t have the style or even perhaps the necessity of serendipity, there are aspects of the association of the two words that provide food for thought. For instance, what if Zembla was not a separate island but an opposite aspect of Serendib, that zemblanity was an incompatible but nevertheless equally essential and indispensable part of serendipity?
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blazed - High on drugs, stoned.
e.g., Eye test
aLrighty, so at this moment i am blazed out of my mind.
i am sitting at my house finally feeling the happiest i have felt in a very very long time.
this is probably at the moment the highest moment in my life.
see i have had a lot of weed which i guess after two months of being high like twice a day i guess i was feeling like i wanted to be really high.
but my friend erica, who happened to have an eigth of shrooms that she didnt want anymore so she said i could have them;.
so not only have i smoked like 7 or 8 bowls of insane weed i have also eaten an eigth of shrooms.
i ma very high nad off my rocker so i am sorry in advance for all of my misspeelings and complete ramling episodes.
see all of a sudden my life has been like three times better.
i have sent in my applications to the two schools i wanted and am almost garunteed entry.
sorry i walked away from my comp and almost got lost.
but i found my way back.
i think i need to go smoke more weed since its really early and im need to get more blazed.
so i am going to try and talk in this more to everyone reading this though they are far and in between.
if isaid that right im not sure. so later for now.
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slugs - "Special low-interest Treasury securities offered to state and local governments to temporarily invest proceeds from municipal bond sales." | "Special nonmarketable certificates, notes, and bonds offered to state and local governments as a means to invest proceeds from their own tax-exempt financing. Interest rates and maturities comply with IRS arbitrage provisions."
e.g., "Slugs, which count against the debt limit, have been suspended several times over the last 20 years to avoid hitting the debt ceiling." | "Slugs are offered in both time deposit and demand deposit forms. Time deposit certificates have maturities of up to one year. Notes mature in one to ten years and bonds mature in more than ten years. Demand deposit securities are one-day certificates rolled over with a rate adjustment daily."
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titbit - A real word, alternative spelling of tidbit: "(Cookery) a tasty small piece of food; dainty." | "A pleasing scrap of anything, such as scandal."
e.g., And, amid these rich and potent devices of the culinary art (not one of which, probably, had been tested, within the memory of any man's grandfather), poor Hepzibah was seeking for some nimble little titbit, which, with what skill she had, and such materials as were at hand, she might toss up for breakfast. House Of Seven Gables by Hawthorne, Nathaniel
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muchtard - An overly generous amount of the spicy condiment derived from the process of grinding the seeds of the mustard plant. Often found at food stands at fairs and carnivals.
e.g., Look! You've got a big, yellow muchstach from too much muchtard on your hot dog!
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adonic - (Rhymes with "ma-JOHN-ick"; adj.) 1. Of or pertaining to Adonis, the Greek lad who embodied the best of male youth, vigor, and beauty; 2. Of or pertaining to masculine beauty (usually the muscley, strong sort, but also the two-days'-growth of beard kind with smoother muscles but with a lot of charm); 3. Characterized by the same indicia of masculine beauty and attractiveness borne by the mythical Adonis.
e.g., "He tries to ask Jennifer out, but he only does it while Paul is standing next to him. I mean, sure, Mike's fairly good looking, I suppose, but next to Paul, all of us look like road kill. The guy is adonic. ... He probably knows how to puke handsomely."
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guy candy - (n.) 1. Well-muscled, good-looking men of the sort it pleases women to ogle; 2. Such a fellow deliberately placed to draw women's attention. [The counterpart of calling beautiful women, especially those dressed to draw men's eyes, "eye candy." Well, I guess men so placed or portrayed are just as much "eye candy" as women, but the rhyme was so good, I just had to document it.]
e.g., If you've seen the ad on tv of the bodybuilder directing traffic, then you've seen purest guy candy. But guy candy doesn't have to be that Adonic. My wife truly enjoys watching shows starring Adrian Paul, and my elder daughter delights in watching Orlando Bloom, Messrs. Paul and Bloom being, according to them, the definition of "guy candy."
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all the livelong - (phrasal adverb) 1. All day; 2. Days and days; 3. For a long, long time; and, figuratively, 4. Forever. [From the old folk song "Working on the Railroad," which includes the immortal line "all the livelong day," meaning "constantly, 24/7, etc."]
e.g., "We're gonna be rewriting this stupid report all week." "Yep. Banging away at the keyboards all the livelong." | "Okay, why don't we reroute the 1080 around Wichita? After it's gone by, we can bring the 988 up past Wichita and on to Topeka." "Yeah, that works ... whoa! Look at the time! We've been working on the railroad all the livelong!"
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sasqwatch - A timepiece used by BigFoot.
e.g., How does Bigfoot tell time? With a Sasqwatch.
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panfrytheism - Belief that the gods can be found through the stovetop, the right cookware, and a little good oil.
e.g., Sarah didn't go to a conventional church, but pursued her panfrytheism enthusiastically in her kitchen with a decent no-stick, thick bottom skillet and olive oil.
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silverware count - Counting the silverware after a dinner party, not to make sure nothing was stolen, but to make sure no silverware gets thrown out in the trash.
e.g., "Ah, that was good. Shall we adjourn to the living room for some after-dinner conversation?" "Let's do a silverware count first. You remember what happened the last time, don't you? I was lucky I didn't lose anything. This is the safe way to go from now on."
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alex the blue nosed reindeer - Alex was the first reindeer with a bright shiny nose until another reindeer came and stole all the fame. Alex's nose glows bright blue. He enjoys playing reindeer games, and pulling Santa's sleigh.
e.g., Alex the blue nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it you would even say it glows.
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heroine - Heroin. We should be so lucky as to be able to replace heroin with heroines.
e.g., "Share his heroine needles with him."
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dealy-bopper - A special thing, the right thing, just what you need to do the job.
e.g., This little dealy-bopper here cost me plenty, but I'll be an ace with it in my hands.
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beanup - A really awesome person.
e.g., My friend is a beanup. | Hey all you beanups, what's up?
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contrapreneur - "Someone who foolishly invests in a declining market. Coined by James Wesley Rawles."
e.g., Am I deliberately investing in a declining market? Yes, I'm a contrapreneur -- except for the being foolish part. I'm selling short. (No, I'm not really doing that.) |
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prepper - From Wikipedia, the hit or miss online encyclopedia: "Prepper: A synonym for survivalist that came into common usage during the late 1990s. Used interchangeably with survivalist much as retreater was in the 1970s. Refers to one who is prepared or making preparations." (Not all preppers are what I generally think of as survivalists, and only very few are likely to be crazed or extreme survivalists.) | "It seems that many people are seeking a proper way to define a prepper. A prepper may come from many different walks of life and prepare in a variety of different ways. This has made it difficult for many people to define a prepper. Here is a simple definition that may help give you a better understanding of what it means to be a prepper." "Definition of a Prepper: Prepper(s) (noun): An individual or group that prepares or makes preparations in advance of or prior to any change in normal circumstances or lifestyle without significant reliance on other persons (i.e., being self-reliant) or without substantial assistance from outside resources (govt., etc.) in order to minimize the effects of that change on their current lifestyle."
e.g., "Preppers are about doing things our grandmothers, grandfathers, and great grandparents were doing in the fifties: gardening, canning, raising chickens and goats." | ''One of the fundamentals of prepping is you don't let anyone know what you've got or why you've got it.'' | "Mrs Lanza, 52, was a 'prepper' -� so called because they are preparing for a breakdown in civilised society -� who apparently became obsessed with guns and taught Adam and his older brother, Ryan, how to shoot, even taking them to local ranges." |
I considered using (sic) to note the misuse of excepted for accepted in the first sentence. However, I think the author is right with the sentence as written -- that survivalism is a movement Average Jo looks on with a wary eye. Average Jo surely thinks survivalists remain close to the fringes of society -- that many, if not most, of them are close to paranoid and are considerably closer to going off the deep end than she is. (I'm not always sure about myself. However, I'm not armed to the teeth with semi-automatic weapons and potentially dangerous.) |
"Was suspected shooters mother a prepper?": "If there is one single most important thing that a Prepper should prepare for, it is the safety of our children."
comingstorm December 16, 2012 at 2:49 pm:"In the public�s eye, preppers are mentally unbalanced to begin with. With this idiot's mother being a prepper, she will be and is beginning to be vilified as one of the causes of this tragedy. That dumbass show Doomsday Preppers doesn�t improve the image a responsible, self-reliant prepper one iota either."
"How to Become a Prepper": "Preppers are genuine in their beliefs that something massive is going to happen. Over the last couple of years, without knowing about preppers, I began to think about stockpiling freeze dried food in case of a long-lasting emergency. Am I a prepper? I think so -- to an extent." (If you think you might be interested in prepping, this essay might be a good place to start.)
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wowcohol - An alcoholic beverage that's so superior in terms of taste and effect that it makes the drinker say, "Wow!" {ED. This might make a good brand name for a line of alcoholic beverages.}
e.g., The proliferation of flavored vodkas practically guarantees that everyone will find her own personal wowcohol.
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nflephant - A person, who has grown very fat due to an inactive existence, watching professional football on television while consuming large quantities of high-calorie snacks and drink.
e.g., Isn't it amazing how NFLephants can criticize football players who are in top physical condition? This is particularly annoying, considering that the NFLephant probably couldn't bang out a single push-up.
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