Our Own Neologisms

Babeling -- towering, especially in a secularly edifying way, as in the case of a Babeling stack of textbooks. We might even use Babel as a verb. I might, for instance, attempt to Babel my way to erudition.

better disappointment -- any disappointing thing that is 1) more disappointing or 2) simply better than another disappointing thing of the same kind. So we might say, for instance, "She is a better disappointment than my last girlfriend." This phrase will usually be used in the first sense, to convey the judgment that the one thing is more disappointing than the other, but just as 'biannual' might mean either "twice a year" or, the less common, "every two years," so too is this phrase flexible enough to suggest that the first of the two things might in fact be comparatively less bad than the other. It probably isn't the degree to which something is bad that matters anyway. And it might not even matter that the thing was deemed to be bad in the first place. After all, after making such a determination, aren't you quite likely to reverse it before you have the chance to do anything more useful with yourself? William Blake described these scales of sentiment more accurately than I could ever hope to; Blake said: "There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference." I don't even know who William Blake is, but Chuck Baudelaire knew him. Also, it turns out that The Doors didn't get their name from Aldous Huxley's essay-- The Doors of Perception. The name ultimately comes from Blake, who first coined the phrase in his book, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, where he observes, "If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite." Blake's book is also the source for the name of Huxley's other, less famous essay: Heaven and Hell which was a better disappointment than The Doors of Perception. I've now spent everything that I've ever learned from the Introduction to Baudelaire's On Wine and Hashish. With a fickle heart, please accept this phrase.

debacular -- from the Latin verb, 'debacculare,' by way of the Old French, 'debacler.' Adjective for debacle: of or relating to a ludicrous failure.

deventer -- to disembowel.

full of holes -- Here is a new use for an old phrase: I like her because she is full of holes.

gravely unimportant -- "While standing in line, waiting to be let in the bar, I got to feeling gravely unimportant. Why do this? Why again? I'm pretty sure that I'd rather be sleeping."

Halfrican -- mulatto. A portmanteau of 'half' and 'African', belonging to a class of word combinations that we fondly call, 'Gundiganisms', because they are the peculiar brainchildren of the people of El Segundo. (Source: "Silly" Eno.)

homelessy -- of or relating to homeless people or the condition of being homeless, or even a broader air of homelessness. Stolen without permission from Rachel, whose last name I can't remember. It's short anyway.

insentient grumblings -- What to most people count as thoughts.

irrecondite -- not obscure, obvious.

neglecting drugs-- vb., as in, to neglect drugs, which would be akin to abusing drugs, but serious in an altogether different way.

othrewise, othwerise -- for dyslexics, alternative misspellings of the word, 'otherwise'.

plumage -- pubic hair, preferably that of a dove-skinned brunette.

plussed -- Not at a loss for words. A state of perfect composure or complete equanimity.

respiteful -- restful or well-rested, especially when used to describe somebody else's nap or subsequently cheery condition, either or both of which may cause you to harbor spite with renewed vigor. Use as in, "So, your nap was respiteful then?"

retardedly -- done like a retard.

ricockulous -- the meaning of this should be self-evident. Another Gundiganism. (Source: Silly Eno.)

sorostitute -- sorority girl. Yet another Gundiganism. (Source: Silly Eno.)

take off her blue stockings -- what an intellectual woman does before getting into bed. For example, the phrase might be used in a sentence such as this: "If I could only get her to take off her blue stockings."

unabated genius -- after the next entry, the remainder.

unerring stupidity -- a contraction of what I see when I look in the mirror.

un-understandable -- not understandable. (Source: Richard Feynman.)

unwitty -- I love this word. Contributed by Daniil Kharms.

violent scent -- Used to describe the relative strength of the cologne or perfume that a person is wearing.

whore -- (Johnson's synomyms for) doxy, drab, fornicatress, laced mutton, punk, strumpet, trull.