Some new 'fun' words from the Washington Post

Handout for LING-057, Language and Popular Culture

The Washington Post published its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for various words. [Notice how many of these are 'blends'.] And the winners are:

  1. Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.

  2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

  3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

  4. Esplanade (v), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

  5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

  6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

  7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

  8. Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.

  9. Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

  10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

  11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

  12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.

  13. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.

  14. Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.

  15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your Soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there

  16. Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts

And for more fun, look at the American Dialect Society Words of the Year page.

And for previous examples from the Washington Post, see this site.