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Our Guide to Novenclature: Part III
Newly Formulated Words to Describe the Previously Indescribable
Misingenious (n): One who, by accident, routinely tells lies to the wrong person.
Sibrate (v. regular): The act of emitting a hissing sound through the lips in a failed attempt at whistling.
Visent (n): A blank, or unemotional, expression used in the playing of poker.
Rotacussion (n): A drum beat which resembles the sound of a motor or engine, specifically that of a rotary wing aircraft.
Chimley (adj.): Pertaining to or resembling an old, battered, useless kite.
Lunution (n): The exact month within which a republic or democracy is transformed into an empire via the actions of a powerful individual politician.
Tyle (v. regular): To urinate while sitting down.
Gathe (n): The smell of burnt hair. Gæthic (adj.): That which has a smell resembling burnt hair.
Senthadure (n): A basketball game wherein both competing teams’ scores require the use of a three digit number to be tallied.
Anicathate (v. he anithates, she anithates, they anithate / he anithated, she anithated, they anicathed / he anican, she anicana, they will anicathatia): The act of a Vice Admiral opening a car door for a Rear Admiral on a Tuesday afternoon.
Bant (n): An accumulation of bottle caps in a trash receptacle.
Thereout (prep.): Used to distinguish an object which is near two conversers and an object which is more distance from the two observers.
Sogria (n): The warm burning sensation which accompanies and immediately follows the consumption of intoxicating liquors.
Tympasogria (n): The similar sensation manifested in the blood vessels and tissues of the outer ear.
Litholeazation (n): The slowly dawning realization that an object one believed was a rock is actually a dirt clod.
Orlumate (v. regular): The act of placing one’s mouth around the end of a flashlight in order to allow the light to create an orange glow while passing through the translucent flesh of the cheeks.
Wrist (v. regular): To mutter a non-sensible phrase to oneself while in deep thought, or while ruminating on a subject or memory of great personal importance.
Dubniumesque (adj.): Pertaining to, related to, or identified with atomic element number 105.
Carusiohnipistle (n): A correspondence which is written in order to terminate a romantic relationship.
Oot (v. regular): The act of grasping another person’s leg, thigh or knee as a sign of sexual attraction.
Aldarss (n): An exclamation uttered while watching a Zeppelin burst into flames.
Coulromal (n): A sad or clinically depressed clown.
Jaep (v. regular): The act of reading a collection of new words off of a website.
Vole
The Historigon: Pentember 2007
This Month in History:
- 2001 AD: After opening a box of Lucky Charms™ cereal, cashier David Bowman exclaims “My God, it’s full of stars!”
- 1978 AD: Six-year-old Ruth West of Dublin, Virginia completes a wax-crayon-on-paper rendering of her family.
- 1950 AD: Edward Teller successfully convinces the US Government to fund his “Super Atomic Destruct-o-Pod,” later renamed the Hydrogen Bomb.
- 1932 AD: Former choir-boy Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili finds a new, snappier name for himself after reading through an imported comic book about Superman.
- 1915 AD: A friend convinces Manfred Von Richthofen that red might be more suitable plane color than pink or periwinkle.
- 1876 AD: American President U.S. Grant, in an incident echoing Canute, spends half an hour firing a shotgun into the Potomac River.
- 1805 AD: Napoleon Bonaparte, in celebration of his victory at Austerlitz, shaves off his famous mustache and orders all extant portraits changed to reflect his new, mustache-less state.
- 1770 AD: Georgia resident George Walton is forced to pay a Window Tax of seven shillings.
- 1654 AD: Haudenosaunee trader Nowadaga asks Frenchman Jacques Harve about the cost of metal axes.
- 1485 AD: Edsin of Leeds attempts to take up Richard III on his now-famous deal, by offering the king a pony. Angered, Richard tries in vain to explain hyperbole to the man.
- 901 AD: Rolf Gadweneson decrees that the gog should replace the hulf as the official unit of field size.
- 79 AD: Using the power of steam and water pressure, Hero of Alexandria becomes the first person to split an atomic nucleus. While the experiment does succeed, the nearby city of Pompeii never recovers.
- 14 AD: Caesar Augustus, shortly before his death, asks for and receives the little-known Third Settlement from the Roman Senate granting him the title of Auarca Formator Magnus, or Great Cobbler.
- 3 AD: The unluckiest man in Han China, Li Yuan Bo, trips over a pig, falls down a flight of stairs, bowls over an imperial eunuch, and sprains his ankle, thus missing his civil service test for Xindu City fowl purveyance inspector (goslings), grade 3.
- 12 BC: Finding a comet in the sky, his noodle soup cold, and the court bards incredibly dull, King Geumwa of Korea decides to play with his magnet collection.
- 102 BC: Lost on a trip from Puerto Rico, an Arawak Indian lands in Florida. He settles there. He is one of the few people to make such a voyage who could legitimately start a sentence with “When I first came to this country…”
- 323 BC: Bectobenthes of Sparta, hanging around Mesopotamia after Alexander the Great’s death, makes one of the most artful, witty and elegant put downs in history. Unfortunately the Babylonian he mocks doesn’t speak any Greek and goes about his business undisturbed.
- 568 BC: Pythagoras, age 14, struggles to learn how to tie his sandals.
- 776 BC: Parshvanatha, a revered figure of perfect enlightenment in Jainism, is found locked in a closet, tangled in his robes, with a particularly frustrated look on his face. One rescuer is heard to snicker loudly.
- 803 BC: A penguin is caught by fishermen off the Iberian Peninsula. Though no one really complains, everyone agrees the meat is a bit gamy.
- 965 BC: Orctobaleneomathimphus the Cupbearer finally gets a vacation after fifteen years of service.
- 1500 BC: Polynesians import the pig to Fiji. While the pig doesn’t particularly wish to go, it realizes its social calendar is rather empty and thinks “Oh, what the hell?”
- 1675 BC: The ancestors of the Yuki peoples arrive near Mount Hood in California. In an episode of historical coincidence, they also name the mountain Hood, though in their language this roughly translates as “fetid pancreas.”
- 2001 BC: D’vshar Bo-min is accidentally infected with a bacteria which kills the parasitic worm that caused his lifelong blindness. “Bless the gods, it’s full of those things,” he exclaims upon seeing the night sky for the first time.
- 2263 BC: Melthep the Akkadian has a bit too much prot-beer and insults Sermin the Akkadian’s wife. Sermin offers to let Melthep sleep with his wife in order to disprove the charges.
- 12000 BC: Upnashatar breaks his leg on a solo hunting expedition. While he does figure out the secret of setting and splinting a broken bone, he dies before he reaches home, delaying the spread of this valuable discovery for another 3000 years.
- 600,000 BC: Durg of the Brown Field People kills the last surviving dinosaur who, thanks to luck and an indeterminate life-span had survived for millions of years.
Saturn
The Hague, EU – Delegates all agreed that Jupiter sure is large, Earth is chock-full of living organisms, and Venus is bright, but once again Saturn, the ringed wonder between Jupiter and Uranus, took home top honors in the sixth annual “World’s Greatest Planet” competition. Top runners up included crowd-favorite Mercury and dark-horse Twopiter, but neither were able to beat out Saturn’s 308 total votes. OGLE235-MOA53 and HD 114762 did not receive any votes whatsoever, though WASP 2 did win an honorable mention for “Most Interesting Name, Extrasolar Category.”
Convention delegates are chosen from the astronomy community, the astrology community and through a lottery sponsored by Go Icecream! Magazine. Each delegate receives three votes which are color coordinated (blue, yellow, pink) and may be cast in any one of the ten categories. The initial categories are chosen by the host committee and include Best Color, Best Moons, Most Interesting Chemical Composition, and Smelliest Atmosphere.
Each of the 430 delegates casts their color votes (for a total of 1290 votes). The three categories with the most yellow cards are then chosen for the second round.
Delegates are divided into teams of ten members each, and each team chooses a candidate for each of the three second round categories. After lunch and coffee, the teams break up and the second round of voting begins when the host committee members distribute a one euro coin to each delegate.
The delegates place their coins in copper pots representing each of the ten candidates in each of the three categories. Only one vote may be cast in any category of the delegate’s choosing. Once the coins are placed, the pots are weighed by the tallest member of the host committee.
If there is a tie the process is repeated again, though in this optional third round each team chooses a mouse from a clear plastic hopper. The mice then run through any of the pre-chosen mazes provided by the host committee. The first three mice to make it through the mazes determine the final, tie-breaking voting teams, who reorganize according to the proportions of specialists and laymen at the competition and vote using black and white beans placed in a simple leather sack.
Fortunately, no tie happened this year.
In the competition’s only upset, Gravitational Microlensing beat out the Transit Method for “Best Detection Method.” Media reports of Transit Method spokes-model Dr. Ira Shore’s poor sportsmanship and bad manners during the announcement were not exaggerated, as the dethroned detection king ripped off his sash and stalked out of the Paard van Troje Concert Hall, knocking over the open bar in the lobby.
The other results this year were astounding as well. For the fifth time in a row Saturn took home the famed silver goblet for “World’s Best Planet,” while Earth and Mars tied for “Best Volcano,” and Neptune took home the title of “Best Gas Giant.”