Consuming…
Seafood salad (with Imitation Crab)
The usual meds
Invitutional n: A fictitious event or contest. From the Latin in meaning not
and vitu meaning alive.
I received the following this week from my forgeign* correspondent Hymie O’Phil:
The Washington Post's Mensa 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:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite
period.
2. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start
with.
3. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
4. Bozone (n.): 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.
5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
8. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
9. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
10. 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.
11. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for
you.
12. Glibido: All talk and no action.
13. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
14. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a
spider web.
15. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning
and cannot be cast out.
16. Caterpallor (n): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you are eating.
And the pick of the literature:
17. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
*forgeign n: living far away and inclined to claim others’ work as your own.
Awesome stuff. Makes a lexicographer-wannabe’s blood boil.
I recalled, however, seeing this same proclamation some time ago (forwarded by Elvis the Obscure no
doubt). Some snappy googling uncovered this has been circulating the Internet for some time. Found one blog that pegged it
back in July 2003. Seemed to be covered only by second person accounts. When a search of the Washington Post’s site failed
to uncover a first person source, I sent a note to my chum and co-author Gene Weingarten.
Guess he was too busy with his
chat this week, since he couldn’t free up to respond to his chum (
n: fish bait) and co-author
JW. Unable
to get to the bottom of it, I decided to hold my own one-man fictitious event. Besides, with the Letterman Top Ten Contest
on vacation this week, I had lots of time on my hands.
Without further ado, here are the only entries (winners by default) from the August 25th Washington Pest Densa Invitutional:
1. Veinglorious adj: having an inflated opinion of one’s vascular system
2. Inflatulated
adj: being so enamored with someone you think it’s cute when they break wind
3. Flabbergassed
adj: the reaction to the same incident when not so enamored
4. Shishkeboob n: an inept
grill chef
5. Perkolate n: flex time. “I took advantage of the company’s perkolate policy and
came in around 10 o’clock.”
6. Shelfish adj: single-handedly eating the entire seafood buffet
at Red Lobster
7. Boysterous adj: how one feels while being shelfish (really feel conchstipated,
but that’s not a legal word)
8. CSPAIN n: TV station that continuously broadcasts live satellite
images of the Iberian peninsula
9. Xorcism n: rite where one is relieved of the uncontrollable
urge to do formal logic
10. Inebrimate v: having sex while drunk
11. Canspiracy
n: when your neighbors dispose their junk using your trash removal service
12. Pawanoia n:
the feeling Bugs Bunny is out to get you
13. Presidensy n: the tenure of the Commander in Chief
14.
Pregurgitate: (1) n: small amount of vomit that occurs before really blowing chow, (2) v:
repeating what someone says before they say it
