Monday, March 28, 2016

Neologisms

I got this in an email back in 2007 and printed it off.  It's been floating around my studio now for the last nine years.  Too good to throw out, but not important enough to keep.

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.
The winners are:
1. Coffee - the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted - appalled over how much weight you've gained.
3. Abdicate - to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade - to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly - impotent.
6. Negligent - describes the condition in which one absentmindedly answers the door in one's nightgown.
7. Lymph - to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle - olive flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence - an emergency vehicle that picks one up after one has been run over by a steam roller.
10. Balderdash - a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle - a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude - the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokémon - a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster - one who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism - the belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent - an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

The Washington Post's Style Invitation also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
The winners are:
1. Bozone - the substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating.  The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the future.
2. Foreploy - any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
3. Cashtration - the act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
4. Giraffiti - vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
5. Sarchasm - the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
6. Inoculatte - to take coffee intravenously when one is running late.
7. Hipatitis - terminal coolness.
8. Osteopornosis - a degenerate disease.
9. Karmageddon - it's, like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right?  And then, like, the Earth explodes, and it's, like, a serious bummer.
10. Decafalon - the grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
11. - Glibido - all talk and no action.
12. - Arachnoleptic fit - the frantic dance performed after walking through a spider web.
13. - Dopeler effect - the tendancy of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
14. - Beelzebug - Satan in the form of a mosquito in your bedroom at 3am which cannot be cast out.
15. - Caterpallor - the color one turns after finding half a worm in the fruit one is eating.

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