Simply said, there is nothing like a good petrichor to make a guy feel on top of the world. That depends, of course, on my computer’s teraflop since I’m WFH and not interested in ghost kitchens. In case you were wondering, those are among the 5,000 new words contained in the 12th edition of the Merriam-Webster collegiate dictionary coming out this week.
Between you and me, I would count ghost kitchen as two words, but I’m not about to get into a disputation with Merriam or with Webster. Lexicographers can be a touchy bunch.
Speaking of lexicographers, I ran this information by my friends, Barney Funk and Porter Wagnalls, for their thoughts. The boys used to put out their own dictionaries until they discovered they could make more money selling aluminum siding. They suggested I take a shot at trying to master the approximately 171,476 words currently floating around in space before I tackle 5,000 new ones (or 5,001, if you count ghost kitchens as 2 words.) Lexicographers can also be acidulous, if not downright trenchant.
For Funk and Wagnalls’ information, putting out carefully-crafted, cutting-edge, jaw-dropping inciteful columns each and every week for your enjoyment and amazement is not as simple as I make it look. I use a lot of words including a bunch of nouns and verbs and an occasional conjunction and I don’t need some pointy-heads jettisoning them just because they can. I find that so – pardon my language – inimically traducing.
It seems that just as I get you comfortable with, say, “enwheel,” Merriam or Webster – I’m not sure which one – takes the word out of their dictionary and I am forced to go with the more pedestrian “encircle,” which I am sure doesn’t impress you and makes you ask yourself if this guy is really cutting-edge. After all, anybody can be encircled, but only in this space could you ever be enwheeled.
And how am I going to discuss current events in Washington or under the Gold Dome without snollygoster as a fundamental descriptor of political discourse? For those of you who haven’t been paying close attention, a snollygoster is defined – or was before Merriam and Webster decided to go all politically-correct on us – as a “shrewd, unprincipled person, particularly a politician guided by personal gain rather than principles.” When I think of snollygosters, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge jumps to mind. Who else but snollygosters would consider approving drilling for toothpaste whitener in our Okefenokee? I think you would agree that the very thought of that is simply persecutory, if not downright rebarbative.
So, out with the old words and in with the new. The new Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary has added within its pages such terms as “adulting” (the act or practice of attending to the ordinary tasks required of a responsible adult) which no one in Washington seems capable of doing these days. And there is “rizz” (romantic appeal or charm), “doomscroll” (excessive time online scrolling through news or other content that makes one feel sad, anxious, angry, etc.) and “dad bod” (slightly overweight and not extremely muscular.) But nothing about “mom bod” which I think Merriam and Webster both decided would get them the “side eye,” (a sidelong glance or gaze of scorn, suspicion, disapproval) from the Woke crowd.
With all due respect to Merriam and to Webster, too, chances of seeing these new words in this space are pretty doggoned dubitable. I don’t know what was wrong with the old ones. I don’t feel the need to be trendy or to use big words to try and wow you. That would be mendacious and I am sure you would find it eristical.
Besides, it doesn’t take multi-syllable words to get the wingnuts on both sides of the political spectrum in a tizzy which gives meaning to my life. Without humorless RITNOs (Republicans in Trump’s Name Only) and liberal weenies who think for some reason that boy prisoners should be allowed to be girl prisoners and vice versa, I would be just another fallow belletrist. Perish the thought.
By the way, if it slipped past you in the opening paragraph, petrichor is a pleasant odor after a rainstorm. Teraflop is a unit of measure for calculating the speed of a computer. WFH means working from home and ghost kitchens are facilities that prepare foods to be eaten off the premises. But I suspect you already knew that. You, dear reader, are as perspicacious as you are fervid. That’s a simple fact.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139
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