To be able to express oneself in a way that others can really understand what we are trying to portray is a skill not too many people are able to muster.
My first spoken word was "banana" which I suppose it's quite different from the usual "mama" or "dada" that babies manage... Imagine my parents having to explain that to the family!!!
I guess it was the feeling that I had to make up for pointing at my dad and saying "banana" which pushed me towards becoming better at choosing the right words for the appropriate situations and in several different languages too.
So it really is no surprise I would feel attracted by a post about made up words with very clever meanings. I mean, how much actual knowledge of a language one must have to be able to create new words and attach a perfectly reasonable meaning to them... I applaud these minds!
Apparently every year The Washington Post's Style Invitational asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
I just about died laughing at a few of the results.
There are many but here are a few of my favourites besides the one I used as the title which definitely takes the prize:
- Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
- Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
- Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
- Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
- Unfare (n) - The dollar you owe to the taxi driver before you have even moved.
- Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an *******.
- Negatile (n) - An area of the bathroom floor where, somehow, the scale registers you 5 lbs lighter.
For more of these very clever words go on the Sniglets site... rather funny!
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