by Fred Russell
How are new words popularized? Mostly in the media, but journalists are only the middlemen of language, picking up on words and phrases that are in the air and repeating them endlessly until they are incorporated into the lexicon of journalistic platitudes and available to everyone. Therefore what is fresh soon becomes stale and no one who respects the language, or himself, will go anywhere near these locutions. Here are a few of the gems, relatively recent: slippery slope, fiscal cliff, crunching numbers, growing the economy, do the math, level playing field, cutting edge, no brainer, game changer, harm’s way, outside the box, under the radar, in the loop, proactive, Obamacare, outsourcing, win-win, toxic, viral, uber, czar, buzz, spin (and of course the now ubiquitous “multiple times”).
As journalists lack the talent to create anything, if you wish to go to the source you have to go to imaginative writers and certain quirky types, but that’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Here then are a few suggestions, all in one place and in alphabetical order. I don’t know how quickly the media people are going to latch on to them, so use them while you can:
Au pavant – on your toes.
Belindarize – introduce to a lot of girls named Belinda. Likewise, Margaretize, Meganize, etc.
Bilbatious – quarrelsome.
Blintz – a Jewish blitz; to blintz someone would be to bombard him with food.
Blubs – poorly written blurbs; or alternatively, flubs committed by fat people, as in “Blubberboy blubbed it.”
Clambankerous – addicted to clambakes.
Decobbed – castrated.
Flied food – Any Chinese dish sprinkled with dead flies.
Floccid – alt. (Brit.?) sp. for flaccid.
Fluturbed – No need to define; anyone can figure it out.
Frendentious – off-putting.
Fricsome – tending to rub up against people or rub them the wrong way.
Glinky – kinky or slinky. See next entry.
Guffy – puffy or scruffy. Take your pick, as it has opposite meanings. “You look kind of guffy today.” Yes, that’s good. I like it.
Hunkum – chunks of cannibal food.
Lamorous – amorous and glamorous; may also be used to describe a romantic novel.
Limbraceous – having brittle bones.
Lipcracker – a good joke.
Mammostulous – humongous.
Piffleball – paddleball without the paddles.
Precastrous – a mental condition leading to self-castration.
Scraaambunctious! – out of this world.
Scratious – irritable.
Squirky – porous, leaky, unreliable, paranoid.
Underballed – impotent, or not getting any, as the case may be.
Wildnuts – sexually active adolescents.