NEOLOGISMS #2

Some more words that aren’t words:

newsance: An annoying non-story that won’t go away because nothing else is happening that’s worth reporting about. I thought the Gary Condit story had legs, but it turns out it was just a newsance.

oligarchery: The art of firing poison arrows at the powerful. “Fahrenheit 9/11″ turned out to be a nasty bit of oligarchery.

pallitics: The temporary sense of bipartisanship that immediately follows a tragic event. September 11 could’ve been a turning point for Congress, but it created nothing but pallitics.

Quikzotic: Unexpected behavior exhibited by small children who think you have chocolate milk. He’s all Quikzotic, but I drank the last of the chocolate milk last night!

renonunnegify: To assert a non-retraction of a denial. The press secretary had to renonunnegify her previous statement that the President’s mood was “guardedly optimistic” rather than “cautiously hopeful.:

semiautics: The maneuvers a car driver performs once they get colse enough to a semi that they can read the “If you can’t see my mirrors, I can’t see you” sticker on the back. Did you see that car brake from 74 to 50? That’s a practicioner of semiautics/.

therms of endearment: The extra couple degrees you turn the thermostat up or down to accomodate a loved one’s preferences, even though you’re dying from the heat/frozen stiff. I know we should keep the house at 68 in the winter, but I let my wife turn it up to 72–call it therms of endearment, I guess.

underwhere?: Type of garment preferred by teenagers at shopping malls, or anywhere else they’re out of Mom’s sight.

viledictorian: Any college commencement speaker who clearly does not belong on the stage and, in fact, should have a restraining order forbidding him/her to come within 500 yards of a place of learning.

W-tutionary atonement: The belief that not reelecting the current president will instantly solve all the nation’s problems.

xylophony: One who engages in a poorly-executed attempt at pretending to play a musical instrument. I caught a rerun of The Cosby Show last night–they had all these jazz cats playing, but then the grandpa got up to play with them. What a xylophony that guy was; he moved the trombone slide five miles for every note he played.

Yokel Ono: Anyone who breaks up a group of young urban friends by marrying one of them and convincing them to buy a house in a far-off suburb. Jack used to hang with us, but then he met Jen, that Yokel Ono, and the next thing you know they’re buying a house in Port Washington.

Z-bricking: Any attempt to make a minor, superficial accomplishment seem much more impressive than it is. From the ubquitous game-show prize of the 1970s, which appealed to people who thought having really fake-looking plastic bricks on the wall was much better than paint or wallpaper (OK, given the tastes of the 70s, maybe it was).