Year: 2005

These came to me via email today with the follwing lead-in:

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

I thought some were kind of neat and wanted to pass them on. I also wanted to include the link to the Washington Post’s site for your enjoyment as well. A Google search quickly discovers that I am not alone in wanting to blog about these “new” words. After clicking on a couple of the links it is starting to seem like these may have been from 2003. They may not even have been more than one. Most interestingly I found reference to these words from 1998! This is entirely possible as it is a weekly item and they are up to number 592 (meaning they started about 11-1/2 years ago.) Here is a link that will let you peruse the previous 100. With out further ado I present the rest of the email, 1-18 came today, the last 20 some odd I culled from the 1998 reerence:

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
3. Bozone: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
5. Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
11. 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.
12. Decafalon: The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido: All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic fit: The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug: Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor: The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you’re eating.
18. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.
19. Fortissimoe: the musical moment produced when someone serially slaps the faces of the first-violin section.
20. Tatyr: a lecherous Mr. Potato Head.
21. Doltergeist: a spirit that decides to haunt someplace stupid, such as your septic tank.
22. Conratemps: the resentment permanent workers feel toward the fill-in workers.
23. Whitetater: a political hot potato.
24. Impotience: eager anticipation by men awaiting their Viagra prescription.
25. Auto-da-feh: the extermination of heretics via drowning in a vat of pus.
26. Stupfather: Woody Allen.
27. DIOS: the one true operating system.
28. Writer’s tramp: a woman who practices poetic licentiousness.
29. Taterfamilias: the head of the Potato Head family.
30. Guillozine: a magazine for executioners.
31. Adulatery: cheating on your wife with a much younger woman who holds you in awe.
32. Suckotash: a dish consisting of corn, lima beans and tofu.
33. Emasculathe: a tool for castration.
34. Burglesque: a poorly planned break-in.
35. Genitaliar: an image-enhancing object that can be carried in a man’s front pocket.
36. Antifun gal: a prude.
37. Vaseball: a game of catch played by children in the living room.
38. Eunouch: the pain of castration.
39. Hindkerchief: really expensive toilet paper; toilet paper at Buckingham palace.
40. Deifenestration: to throw all talk of God out the window.
41. Hozone: the area around 14th street.
42. Acme: a generic skin disease.
43. Hindprint: indentation made by a couch potato.
44. Coiterie: a very VERY close-knit group.