WRY NEW WORDS

Since 1990, the American Dialect Society has paid homage to the most sublime creations of each year- the new words that grace our lexicon. The words of the year have included “metrosexual,” “9-11,” “subprime,” the prefix “e,” to denote involvement in electronic media, “tweet” and the term “world wide web.” Many other words from the the computer age have featured prominently in categories such as “most useful” and “most likely to succeed” such as “blog,” “ google,” “facebook,” “dot.com” and the prefix “cyber.” The words of the year for 2010 will be announced this year in Pittsburgh on Jan 7^th.

My favourite neologisms, however, deal with irreverent new usages as the American Dialect Society often lists doozies in their “most euphemistic” and “most outrageous” categories.

Here, in alphabetical order are some offerring in these two categories:

Badly sourced – Employed by Colin Powell and others to mean “false.”

Bumper Nutz – Fake testicles hung from the rear end of a vehicle.

Cambodian accessory – Angelina Jolie’s adopted child who is Cambodian.

Cliterati – Feminist or woman-oriented writers or opinion leaders.

Controlled flight into terrain – Defined as a “crash with a good pilot and a good plane.”

Courtesy Call – An uninvited call from a telemarketer usually occurring during suppertime.

Crotchfruit – A term designating a child or children. This expression seems to have been inspired by the term “fruit of one’s loins” and began as a word used by proponents of child-free public space, but has since been adopted by some parents as a jocular term for their progeny.

Extraordinary rendition – The deportation to a country that might receive a person unkindly through the use of torture or other unpleasantries.

Fish pedicure – A cosmetic procedure in which fish eat the dead skin off the feet.

Food insecure – Said of a country where the people are starving.

Florida flambé – Fire caused by Florida electric chair.

Grid butt – Marks left on the buttocks by fishnet pantyhose.

Holistic practitioner – A prostitute.

Internal nutrition – The force-feeding of prisoners against their will.

Jesusland – The country which will be the rump USA after the blue democratic states have seceded and joined Canada.

Muffin top – The bulge of flesh hanging over the top of low-rider jeans.

Partner reduction – Divorce or severing of a romantic relationship.

Population reduction – A combat assignment.

Pre-emptive self defense – An attack made before a possible attack

Scooping technician – Person whose job it is to pick up dog poop.

Sea kittens – Fish, as coined by PETA.

Starter marriage – A first marriage not expected to be the last, akin to a starter home.

Sudden jihad syndrome – An outburst of violence from a seemingly stable and normal

Muslim.

Symmetry failure – Surgery performed on the wrong side of the body, as in, “OMG, they took out the wrong kidney!” Otherwise known as wrong-site surgery.

Thought showers – This term was coined by a British city council because the synonym brainstorming was said to be offensive to epileptics.

Torture-lite – Characterization ofAmerican treatment of prisoners of war; torture short of blatant bodily harm.

Tramp stamp – A tattoo on a woman’s upper bottom or lower back.

Transfer tube – A container or the transfer of a corpse, previously referred to as a body bag.

Truthiness– In its 16th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted truthiness as the word of the year. This term was popularized on the Colbert Report, and refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. As Stephen Colbert put it, “I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart.”

Unorthodox entrepreneur – A panhandler, drug dealewr or prostitute in a Vancouver park.

Urban camping – Living homeless in a city.

Whizzinator – A trademarked urinating device using a realistic prosthetic penis and

synthetic urine in order to pass a drug test.