A friend of mine wears very conservative, one-piece swimsuits. She had left her swimsuit and shorts over at a friend’s house, but she didn’t remember where she left them. The friend didn’t know whose they were, so she threw them away. A couple weeks later she emailed my friend the bad news, having recently realized …
Category: words
May 29
oubliette
OOB-lee-ET, n., a secret dungeon with access only through a trapdoor in its ceiling.
Apr 10
fizzlesprung
n., presumably means, ‘malfunctioning.’ A customer called the other day saying, “This darn computer is fizzlesprung.”
Mar 29
Donkeys, horses, asses, and mules: part 3
The mascot of the University of Central Missouri (formerly Central Missouri State University) is the mule, and male athletes there are called mules. However, female athletes are called jennies (the name for a female donkey) instead of mollies (the name for a female mule). Several years ago they had the mascot redesigned to be more …
Mar 14
Donkeys, horses, asses, and mules: part 1
For those of you confused about the difference between donkeys, asses, and mules (I assume you can identify horses), this is for you. I hope I get all the terminology right, because each creature gets it own word based on gender, species, parentage, and whether or not it (in the case of males) has been …
Feb 15
Valentine’s Leftovers
In my post yesterday I kept trying to find a way to abbreviate ‘Valentine’s Day’ (besides just leaving off the ‘St.’ like everyone else). After all, we abbreviate ‘Christmas’ as ‘Xmas.’ But how would we abbreviate Valentine’s Day? Expressing it as ‘VD’ just doesn’t sound right for a holiday that celebrates love. Still, it wouldn’t …
Jan 19
Redneck chandelier
My friend Dawn’s colloquial name for those bare ceramic light bulb sockets usually seen mounted in basements. Deluxe model shown below:
Nov 07
sagan
n. A unit of measurement equal to at least four billion. It was created as a humorous tribute to astronomer Carl Sagan.
Nov 05
Collective platypuses
You are probably familiar with some of the more colorful collective nouns used for groups of particular animals, such as a crash of rhinoceroses or a spoonful of pandas. A group of crows is a murder, while a group of ravens is merely an unkindness. I decided to look up what a group of platypuses …
Oct 28
Corn gangsta
n. One who attends a small, rural school in the middle of the Corn Belt, but dresses like he is growing up on the mean streets of Compton. The girls brought this wonderful term home from high school. As far as I know the usage is entirely localized to our school.
