Those Who Know, Chuckle.
Making stuff: up, real, and nicely.
– Definition: v. Utter or deliver words or a speech in a rhetorical or impassioned way, as if to an audience.
– Used in a sentence: Less defaming, more declaiming.
– Why: What with the rise of social media, the audience is a given. Might as well own it.
TODAY KICKS OFF THE WOULD-BE novelists’ annual motivational event, NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write 1,667 words a day for a total of 50,000 by November 30. (I participated one year, and have a fairly mediocre time-travel novel to show for it.)
But some of us who write aren’t het up on novels so much as, say, short stories about a mercenary cook who used to be a holyman but can’t quite shake his past. Toward that end, I invite you to join in the alternative: NaSSWriMo, an acronym which I just made up and won’t insult your intelligence by defining. Continue reading ““NaSSWriMo!””
– Definition: n. A type of local dialect.
– Used in a sentence: His discourse was punctuated by a patois rich in “I know, right?” “Wait. What?” and “Yeah, no…”
– Why: It’s a better (and more elegant and less judgey) label than “vulgar tongue.” Besides, I look forward to hearing people pronounce it “p’toyse” (as I did before I understood French usage).
– Definition: n. Virtue or integrity tested and confirmed.
– Used in a sentence: If our elected officials had more probity, there would be less Congressional probing.
– Why: Actually, I’m not sure whether it’s the word or the concept that needs bringing back. Probably a bit of both.
– Definition (per SubGenius usage): adj. Happily and/or militantly vapid and mediocre; commercially soulless n. One who or that which exhibits these traits.
– Used in a sentence: adj. “I’m surprised to see the otherwise excellently talented Tom Hanks in a movie as Pink as Forrest Gump.” n. “Spank the Pink who tries to drive you nuts.” (DEVO)
– Why: Not so much a WTBB as a word deserving of greater currency. It’s a genuine and succinct Four Letter Word as nasty as any of its once-taboo brethren or sistren.
– Definition: n. a minor dispute or disagreement.
– Used in a sentence: The current Administration* is one big contretemps after another.
– Why: Because “kerfuffle” could use a bit of adulting.
– Definition: n. Abstracted musing; dreaming.
– Used in a sentence: Since late 2016, my reveries have been somewhat disturbed.
– Why: Although it comes from an Old French word meaning “dream,” it also reminds one of “revere” or “reverent.” And aren’t dreams something to hold in reverence?
– Definition: adj. Permitting to a certain extent the passage of light.
– Used in a sentence: O, for a more perfectly pellucid presidency*!
– Why: I’m in favor of this one strictly for the sound of it; the feeling on my tongue as I shape each obscure syllable. (Plus, it makes a nice alliteration with “perfectly” and “presidency.”)
– Definition: n. The act of linking together.
– Used in a sentence: One positive effect of the 2016 election was the concatenation of disparate progressives, some actually lucid.
– Why: Who could argue with a pentasyllabic synonym for “gathering?”
– Definition: v.t. To present for proof or consideration, as an example; cite; allege.
– Used in a sentence: Rod Serling could have saved himself a couple of seconds per episode if he had only prefaced his Twilight Zone introductions with, “Adduced.”
– Why: It sounds just enough like “deduce” to trip up poseurs who attempt to use it without first checking their definition-sets. Plus, in this age of plastic facts we could always use more synonyms for “allege.”
We’re trapped in linguistic constructs… all that is, is metaphor.”
—Robert Anton Wilson
– Definition: adj. cautiously or suspiciously reluctant to do something.
– Used in a sentence: Due to long experience, my cat is no longer chary of taking his arthritis medicine.
– Why: I suppose you could always use the synonymic rhyme “wary,” but to me “chary” sounds similar to “charity” — and it’s sometimes prudent to be so when offered something for nothing.
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