Welcome Back!

 Hello, Friends.

Happy New Year! Classes and meetings begin again on January 4! I am looking forward to catching up with everyone and hearing about your vacation and holiday celebrations.

Look for an e-mail with Zoom links for the Spring refresh! To prime your English and have some fun

English Word Fun

Playing with words is always fun and interesting. Do you know the original meaning? Are the new meanings funny or apt?

Each year The Washington Post publishes the winning submissions to its yearly neologism (Yes, this is a thing. Click the word for even more) contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words.

The winners are from a few years ago:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.

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 absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

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

8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavoured mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.), 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 bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n.), a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

The winners were:

-Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

-Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

-Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

-Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

-Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

- Karmageddon (n): It's like, when everybody is sending off all these Really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

- Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

- Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

- Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:

- Ignoranus (n): A person who is both stupid and an asshole.