Explorations of 2012
2/6/2012: Found Words
This exploration calls for collecting words I find interesting. Luckily I have a colorful News Feed on my Facebook home page, so I thought, why not make something useful out of it? Here are some words I find fascinating:
Bronie: (n) an obsessive male fan of the new My Little Pony. (Who knew there was such a specific term to describe this underground culture? Who are these people and why do they like MLP so much?)
Zombie (just say it a few times or listen to the Cranberries song of that title. It’s an extraordinary word.)
Mardi Gras: Since my family and I are from New Orleans and Mobile, there are tons of posts about it on my News Feed. It’s such a fun phrase.
Appropriatin: Unsure of the real meaning, but my friend used it in the context of “Dude f*** Madonna and her appropriatin ass.” Therefore I have reason to believe it is an insult, but I do not know how I would want to use it. (And he is a gay guy; aren’t they supposed to love Madonna?)
Histrionic: A type of personality disorder… don’t ask why people were talking about that on my news feed.
Sneezing: I just like ‘z’ words I suppose, but isn’t this such a cool word?
Gloom: This is one of those words (I forgot the name of what you call it) in which the word sounds like the thing itself. This isn’t exactly the same as “hiss,” but if gloom had a sound, it would sound like “gloom.” Know what I mean?
Odious: I heard this recently while watching this Elizabeth Gilbert talk and I want to start using it more. It’s so descriptive in alluding to something awful and repulsive. It’s an efficient word.
Bletcherous: Something poorly or disgustingly designed. It’s no surprise that it sounds like “belch” which is also disgusting.
Jumentous: Smelling of horse urine (or according to the dictionary, smelling strongly of a “beast of burden.” I’m sure most people don’t know this word, but my dad and cousins had horses growing up, and every now and then I’d hear this word despite their traditional country dialect with not-so-sophisticated vocabulary.
Aww man, my favorite was probably bletcherous. It does sound alot like belch. Histronic didn’t have the definition I thought it would. I thought it would have to do with history, but a personality disorder?
I love “appropriatin’”… it’s an insult for sure. You should check it out because it’s related to some of the core ideas of remixing, mashing up, and so forth… things we’ve talked about and written about this year. Also love histrionic… have even used that one occasionally. I’d also a fan of odious. So glad you picked these. Love the found words exploration. I really need to do this one before our exploration time is up! Thanks for reminding me how fun this can be.