Thursday, February 02, 2006

All The Bells and Whistles

HIPPOPOTOMONSTROSESQUIPPEDALIOPHOBIA
- (The fear of long words.)

Sometimes you gotta break out the Thesaurus to get others to dust off their own copies. Sometimes you use big words to impress your readers. You can consider it as providing a public service. Sometimes you throw in some big words just to be mean. (Bwahaha!) Some times you insert these words because you saw it in print somewhere and you are just dying for an excuse to use them. Well, they don't work when you try to use them when talking with friends and family. So why not unleash them upon an unsuspecting blogger audience? They don't know that you are really a dumb ass and have no clue what the word means.

If your writing tends to become quaquaversal*, it is the perfect reason to litter your posts with fifty dollar words. This effrontery* of creating an imbroglio* may or may not be appreciated. Your obduracy* to cause obfuscation* might be looked upon as vituperation*. However, the parturiency* that the readers gain will outweigh the effort of looking up the words.

*Quaquaversal - rambling; changing thoughts, moving from one subject to another *Effrontery - audacity; impudence; unashamed boldness *Imbroglio - state of confusion *Obduracy - stubborn, obstinate; without pity *Obfuscation - confusion, bewilderment *Vituperation - beration; cruel; abusive language *Patruriency - making a discovery; laborious education; giving birth
I decided that I didn't want to make you go crazy, so I gave you the definitions. See what a nice guy I can be - sometimes!
I was thinking ... yep, a good example of quaquaversal ...
....Do people who write ethnic jokes use a StereotypeWriter?
....If the maker of those vibrating Electronic Football Games decided to design Chess Boards the game would speed up considerably.
....When I was a kid my parents use to punish us by not allowing us to watch TV. Now they punish kids by making them watch TV.
....What good is White Out, that white correction fluid other than sniffing? I tried to correct a typo and all it did was mess up my monitor screen.

What does it really mean when the Groundhog sees his shadow? Six more weeks of basketball!
All I gotta say in closing is, that was one mean bastard who named the fear of big words: Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia !!
No.523

5 comments:

StringMan said...

This all makes me appreciate Hemingway even more. He hardly used words over two syllables, let alone those making you run to the dictionary.

StereoType. Hehe.

Peter said...

If he hadn't been showing off it would have probably been hippophobia, then we could have used it for fear of big words or big animals, whichever suited the occasion best.

Marti said...

Just don't bloviate - LOL

I found a hilarious groundhog picture!

Happy Groundhog Day!
I hope something wonderful ‘pops up’ for you today! LOL

OldHorsetailSnake said...

Would wormigestiphobia be the fear of not being able to digest worms, or the fear of being able to digest worms? C'mon, Hale, you the expert.

kenju said...

Oh, Hoss, you slay me - and so do you, Mike. Iknew all those words except the first and the last - so THERE!