Silliness to be savored.

thEvery so often I get an e-mail about the “Mensa Invitational,” a word game hosted by The Washington Post. It asks readers to make up new words by adding or subtracting a letter from an existing word.

A few examples:

Foreploy: Misrepresenting yourself for the purposes of obtaining sex.

Intaxication: The euphoria that accompanies an income tax rebate (which lasts only until you realize that this was your money to begin with).

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic humor and the person who doesn’t get it.

Glibido: All talk, no action.

Pretty clever, huh? The only problem with the Mensa Invitational is that it doesn’t exist. (Yet another reason to stop blindly forwarding every e-mail you get.)

There is, however, a contest called the Style Invitational that’s published every Sunday in The Washington Post’s Style (aka “features”)  section and every Friday online. It features a variety of humor types, from song parodies to cartoon captions. And yes, neologisms, although these aren’t limited to adding or subtracting a letter.

Some neologisms I loathe,  e.g., “guestspert.” But because language is (or should be) both fun and fluid, I do like making up words. That’s why I’m proposing the first-ever Surviving and Thriving Non-Hideous Neologism Contest.

Why not give it a try? There’s a prize in it for you.

Invent your own words

If I receive at least five entries, I’ll award a $10 Amazon gift card via the random number generator. I’ll even relax the rules, i.e., it doesn’t have to be a one-letter change. You can use more than one word at a time, add more than one letter, et al.

To prime the pump, I’ll start with a handful of my own:

Avoirdupoise: Being comfortable and confident even if the BMI says you’re overweight.

Hypervigilante: Someone who’s determined to over-organize, over-think and over-prepare every last detail of a social event shared with others. (Guilty!)

Meanderthal: Someone who’s not only stupid, but very, very slow.

Ambidextrose: Able to eat sweets with either hand.

Musturd: That little dried-up blob that blocks the squeeze function of your bottle of French’s.

Porneau riche: The obscenely wealthy.

Upon hearing about my contest, my life partner contributed this one, off the cuff:

Goater: A western about men who raise billies and nannies.

The deadline to enter is Sept. 5. If I don’t receive any entries, I’ll assume that none of you have any imagination at all. Or that you had to wash your hair.

Full disclosure: I am actually a member of Mensa, but people are much more impressed by the fact that I was once on the game show “Jeopardy!”

More light reading:

Please follow and like us:

48 thoughts on “Silliness to be savored.”

  1. Grumpelstiltskin- Grumpy person who tries to make deals. (If I eat one more bite then can I get down from the table? But whhhhy?)

    Reply
  2. Mompetition: The insidious competition between moms of all ages to be all, do all, and have all, at the right time, right place, etc.

    By the way, I like the sarchasm one. I have that experience at work sometimes, and I have to explain “I was being sarcastic, people.” You’d think after 8 years, my co-workers would have figured that out!

    Reply
  3. Showrise – the tendency of lowrise pants to show more than intended. (underpants!) “Be careful bending over or you’ll showrise.”

    Reply
  4. Pedilure – trying to catch a fish by dangling your toes in the water.

    I’m getting a bit too obsessed with this game. 🙂

    Reply
  5. I coined these two when we remodelled our bathroom several years ago, and I just had to find the perfect toothbrush holder, among other things:
    excessories – overabundance of accessories, e.g. toothbrush holders
    obsessorizing – obsessing about excessories, e.g. toothbrush holders
    (what can I say – that bathroom remodel was a long-awaited event!)

    Reply
  6. Does this work?

    Pissle (verb): to urinate in a wasteful, trifling or ineffective way; to dawdle while urinating. For example, Bob’s usual pissling during the weekly pub crawl (at the six beer mark!) annoyed his friends to no end.

    Reply
    • A related offering….
      Matrimoney – The $ paid for a wedding ceremony. Alternatively, the $ paid if it doesn’t work out!

      Reply
  7. Inspired by Dina’s neologism:

    budgetilicious
    – the attractiveness of someone capable to live within their means (and have fun while they achieve that).

    Reply
  8. Musquirt – the watery crap that comes out of the bottle before the actual mustard starts flowing after you’ve removed the musturd!

    Reply
  9. some oldies but goodies:

    Pokeymon – a Jamaican proctologist

    elbonics – the competition for theatre or airplane armrests

    ignoranus – someone ignorant AND nasty

    And one I recently coined (or possibly overheard):

    obliviot – someone stupid and oblivious

    Reply
  10. Here’s a few more that I’ve used!

    Clopen-the act of working the closing shift and working the opening shift a few hours later

    Boyance- a term referring to a relationship that determines that a man is more than a boyfriend but no one has officially proposed marriage.

    Reply
  11. Vacaption – When one spends their vacation posting updates and photos to social media, they’re on a vacaption.

    Vacaution – A vacation spent in a potentially dangerous area.

    Reply
  12. Footbail – When a diehard football fan bails on their family during football season. (a la “football widow.”

    OR the continuous news articles about football players out on bail!

    Reply
  13. confuzzlment-the state of being so addlepated that you can’t decide if you are merely fuzzy on the details or utterly confused

    Reply

Leave a Comment