Operations suspended

Dear Readers,

The Daily Coin has temporarily (or permanently) suspended operations. This decision was not made lightly. It was based on the alarmist rantings of self-proclaimed lexical economists who argue that releasing too many new words into circulation will debase our linguistic currency and lead to runaway lexical inflation. The last thing this great nation needs is more words with less meaning. So, to keep our paragraphs shorter and to preserve the semantic exchange of meaningful discourse in public and private I have taken the bold step of shutting down the mint. No neologisms will be coined until the vitality of our lexicon is restored. 

Thank you for your patronage. Your loyalty as readers has been highly valued by the Keebler Elves who were in charge of forging new coins every day in addition to their full-time cookie production work. Unfortunately, you will not be rewarded for your loyalty in this life or the next—and you will not receive any free cookies. You may, however, receive a free duffel bag. In the event this does occur, it will likely have no connection with The Daily Coin. If it does, the connection is purely coincidental.

Please do fill your lexical bag with the jar of coins we have gathered here and hand them out as alms to the wordless in your conversations with others and with yourselves, in your personal and professional email and IM exchanges, in your text messages to strangers—maybe even slip them into a fortune cookie or two.

Thank you, and please spread the words...  

#83 Incrementilitarian

One who believes progress is best achieved in small increments.

It took 23 years but Lowell finally had "W" under his belt, and in three more years he would know the entire alphabet. Progress was slow, but that was fine by him. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day. Slow and steady wins the race. Haste makes waste. These were Lowell's core beliefs as an incrementilitarian. 

#82 Jar of jarg

A jar of jargon preserved for a particular end.

To impress upon the conference attendees the importance of his work, the professor of semiotics littered his address with choice chunks from his jar of jarg.

#81 Knee benders

Derogatory term for office workers who prefer the archaic practice of sitting at a desk to the enlightened practice of standing at a desk.

Clare and Geoffrey knew their love was doomed. She was a standie, he was a knee bender. Standies and knee benders just don't mix. 

#80 Standies

Office workers who formally renounce the archaic practice of sitting at one's desk in favor of standing.

Sitting is done, standing is fun, chairs beware—the standies are here!

#79 Gruelogy

A grueling eulogy.

The friends and family of the dearly departed wept in agony, until the priest finished delivering his gruelogy.

Root = grueling + eulogy

#78 Cushion coins

Concealed, hard-to-find neologisms.

It was almost midnight and the neologist was scrounging through the dank upholstery of his subconscious for any cushion coins he could find. 

#77 Cred chaining

Chaining multiple credit cards together to make a single payment.

The customer at the end of the line in aisle 2 sighed deeply and rolled his eyes as the girl at the checkout counter fanned out a wallet's worth of plastic—American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Discover—in front of the cashier. "I mean c'mon, do you really need that many cans of Pringles? Would it kill you to put down the pack of Salem Lights?" The woman in front of him turned around, shook her head in agreement, and said, "Cred chaining shouldn't be allowed. It's just not right."

#76 Escape art director

Artistic director of escapology in charge of designing novel escape scenarios, procedures, and techniques and leading a team of escape artists in executing on an escape program. 

Handcuffs? Easy. Francis could slip out of them in his sleep. Straitjackets? Pretty much just as easy. Wrapped in chains, nailed shut in a coffin, and buried six feet under? OK, yes it required more skill and effort, but Francis had risen from the nearly dead more times than he could count. What about handcuffs (behind the back), straitjacket on, wrapped in chains, nailed shut in a coffin, and submerged underwater? Plus, throw some snakes in the coffin. A rookie escape artist definitely couldn't pull it off. Even a seasoned escape artist with a few years of experience under her belt probably couldn't pull it off. But Francis wasn't a rookie and he was more than a seasoned escape artist. He'd been in the business for more than 10 years and he was ready to take the next step. He was ready to become an escape art director.

#75 Browse party

A group of semi-organized people gathered to casually browse for no person or thing in particular.

The townsfolk formed a browse party to look for, well, any person or thing that might possibly be missing—a stolen heirloom or perhaps a kidnapped child. It didn't really matter what they found, or if they found anything at all. Nobody had anything better to do, and combing a field seemed like the perfect activity given the pleasant weather.

#74 Humanitation worker

A sanitation worker who cleans up human debris.

Godfrey was thrilled at the prospect of attending his first Civil War reenactment. Unfortunately, he was not ready to serve under Union Army Major General George B. McClellan in an assault on General Robert E. Lee's army at Antietam Creek. Nor was he ready to defend an outnumbered confederate force battling on Union soil for the first time. Today, on the bloodiest single-day of fighting in American history, Godfrey would be cleaning up after the battle. He would be serving both sides as a humanitation worker, gathering decapitated heads, eyeballs, and severed limbs (plastic, of course) and packing them into Rubbermaid bins in preparation for the next battle. 

#73 Plop paradigm

An approach to content development characterized by dumping, or plopping, a vast amount of information onto the page with little or no thought given to structure, organization, coherence, or flow.

Embracing the plop paradigm was the right strategy, according to the strategists who had strategically strategized on the best course of action after assessing and analyzing the metrics matrix. 

#72 Onomatolycanthropoeia

Onomatopoeia as applied to sounds of lyncanthropic origin.

As soon as the door swung open, the trick-or-treater in a werewolf costume demonstrated his mastery of onomatolycanthropoeia by letting out a deep, guttural "owoooooo!" 

Root = onomatopoeia + lycanthropy

#71 Cryptozumbology

Sub-field of cryptozoology concerned with finding evidence for the existence of cryptozoological specimens practicing Zumba.

Dr. Phineas M. Warburton was your run-of-the-mill cryptozoologist—descending into the depths of Loch Ness in a miniature submarine to measure the ultrasonic vocalizations of the elusive Nessie, spelunking in Richtersveld, South Africa to collect the droppings of the legendary grootslang, roaming the remote corners of Puerto Rico to examine the entrails of livestock purportedly attacked by the fearsome chupacabra, and even scaling the craggy peaks of the Himalayas to measure the footprints of the legendary Yeti. That all changed when Dr. Spengler, in the midst of foraging for psychotropic mushrooms in the lush forests of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, encountered what appeared to be a troop of kooloo-kamba performing a Zumba routine to a Gloria Estefan track emanating from the forest canopy. He failed to collect evidence from the scene, but the experience left a deep imprint on his psyche and he vowed to devote his life's work to the study of cryptozumbology.    

Root = Cryptozoology + Zumba

#70 Abstormal

Of abnormal meteorological composition in regard to storm formation.

The anthropocene is here. Abstormal is the new normal.

Root = abnormal + storm

#69 Mittriculated student

A student who is admitted into a college or university, enrolled in an accredited degree program full-time, and eligible for tuition assistance from one's parents.

John would not be attending college in the fall. As the son of a cab driver and a food service worker, he did not meet all of the requirements of a Mittriculated student. 

#68 Monstormsity

A monstrosity of a storm.

East Coast residents are hunkering down with small arsenals of bottled water and beef jerky in preparation for Frankenstorm, a monstormsity expected to unleash meteorological mayhem as it forms into a singular super storm through the convergence of multiple weather systems.

Root = monstrosity + storm

#67 Ledge blubber

The fatty undercarriage of cat a sitting on a ledge.

Perched majestically on the narrow arm of the sofa, the American shorthair would occasionally open its eyes and glance at the comings and goings of its hapless masters with the nonchalance of a sky goddess peering down at lesser beings. Not for lack of sleep would the shorthair, with great frequency, let out a deep, primeval yawn that would send seismic waves cascading through its body, causing its ledge blubber to quake and quiver.

Colloquial usage = Ledge fat, ledge lumps, ledge lumpies

#66 Troll C'ing & V'ing

Grooving through the copying and pasting of a substantial amount of digital content via the keyboard shortcuts CTRL + C and CTRL + V.

Supervisor: What have you been doing all day?

Supervisee: Troll C'ing & V'ing!

Colloquial usage = Troll C'in & V'in

#65 Tockin' the doc

Inserting a table of contents (TOC) into a document.

Supervisor: What are you doing?

Supervisee: Tockin' the doc!

#64 Goudaru

A guru of Gouda.

He ascended from the cheese cave a broken man. His hours of toil had not been rewarded with a wheel of sweet yellow Gouda but a grotesque approximation of a Gouda-like substance. It was no surprise, after all. The operation was botched from the beginning. His cultured milk looked uncultured and uncouth; his curds looked like turds and his whey looked weird. He knew in his heart he would not attain Gouda greatness without guidance from a master Gouda maker, a goudaru.

Root = Gouda + guru

#63 Apology tourist trap

Tourist trap for apologists of America.

The humanities professor was beginning to second guess his vacation plans for spring break. His wife had booked a cruise, Jewels of the Near East, which toured many of the countries Barack Obama had visited during his presidential candidacy. "Liza, maybe we should rethink this trip. I mean, the Middle East is such an apology tourist trap."

#62 Romnascent

Newly emerging after a reboot.

After alienating a significant percentage of the electorate, the Romnascent candidate reinvented his campaign from the ground up.

Root = Romney + nascent

#61 Walk into the ground

To ruin something very gradually through mismanagement. 

The former CEO had run the company into the ground. His successor, however, appeared to be doing much better. So far, she was on track to merely walk the company into the ground.

#60 Romne'er-do-well

A derogatory term for a good-for-nothing Romney supporter engaging in vote-suppressing activity. 

A Romneologist in repose, Dr. Salvatore was sitting on a park bench and taking in the autumn air when a Prius pulled up alongside the edge of the road. The window rolled down slowly, the voice of Terry Gross growing louder as the engorged crimson face of the enraged liberal behind the steering wheel became visible. The Big Bird enabler spat out a mouthful of chai latte and directed his righteous indignation toward a group of seemingly benign Romney canvassers. "I will not stand idly by and watch you infernal Romne'er-do-wells make a mockery of the Fifteenth Amendment. Get lost!" A Romneologism was born and Dr. Salvatore was there to witness it. He began chasing the Prius as it silently sped off into the distance.

Root = Romney + ne'er-do-well

#59 Octafurcate

To divide into eight branches or parts.

The toddler used the plastic knife from the takeout bag to octafurcate the nematode inching along the edge of the picnic blanket.

#58 Petri popsicle

A bacteria-laden object that a teething infant sucks on.

The mother entered the living room only to discover her 7-month old sitting on the floor as content as can be with a petri popsicle in his mouth. As soon as she removed the RCA universal remote control from his mouth her son's serenity dissolved into ferocious hysteria.

#57 Bus lamb

One who is "thrown under the bus." 

Someone ate the last cookie. Someone had to take the fall for it. It was not going to be Maurice. No, not this time. He had been thrown under the bus all his life. He was not going to be the sacrificial bus lamb for this one. Besides, he was allergic to macadamia nuts. Why would he eat the last Sausalito Milk Chocolate Macadamia cookie from the Pepperidge Farm sampler in the office break room?

#56 Romneologist

One who coins neologisms containing "Romney" as the root word.

Professional herpetologist by day, semi-professional endocrinologist by mid-day, and amateur etymologist by night, Dr. Arturo M. Salvatore was on the trail, he believed, of the Romneologist who coined the portmanteau word Romneycare.

Root = Romney + neologist

#55 Scrambloon

A person, place, object, idea, or goal that represents a false form of salvation.

"Don't be a dimbo socket," cried Milton's wife. "You're really going to bankrupt us just to buy that stupid totaliterry cloth robe? Don't you see? It's just not going to make you happy. It's a scrambloon. Like when you wanted to meet Kelsey Grammer. I spent all my graduation money getting us to LA so we could be in the live studio audience to see an episode of Frasier being filmed and then sneak into his dressing room. It was going to transform your life forever, and it did. For about a week. Then you wanted to move to New Zealand and we did. We spent our last dime getting there just so we could work for free on a llama farm. And don't think I forgot when you sold our car to buy that holy loaf of Wonder Bread from eBay, where each slice, after being toasted, supposedly would depict a Station of the Cross. Or when you wouldn't shave for almost three years because you wanted to set the Guinness world record for longest mutton chops."

#54 Somnambulatte

A latte consumed while sleepwalking.

After returning from the sleep clinic where she was observed rising from a slow wave sleep stage and playing a game of cribbage against herself, Gwen was surprised to discover she had the rare condition of somnambulism. After returning from her accountant's office where a year's worth of receipts from Starbucks revealed that she was purchasing a triple grande soy latte every single day at 2:45 AM, she was flabbergasted to discover she was a somnambulatte drinker.

Root = somnambulate + latte

#53 Dehydrabation

Dehydration caused by debating. 

Winning the debate against Obama’s Bidencep was important for the wonkabe, but not nearly as important as avoiding dehydrabation. 

#52 Bidencep

Obama’s rhetorical muscle in the form of Joe Biden.

While Romney unleashes the big guns with Paul Ryan, who is pumping up for the vice presidential debate with multiple sets of alternating bicep curls, President Obama is flexing his Bidencep as Vice President Joe Biden finishes up a four-day regiment of mock-debate concentration curls at an intense debate camp in Wilmington, Delaware.

Root = Biden + bicep

#51 Educonsternation

Anxiety, frustration, and dismay over the state of modern education.

In the latest attempt to allay our educonsternation, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a proclamation to replace paper with pixels. "Over the next few years," he said, "textbooks should be obsolete." 

Root = education + consternation

#50 Paradox of the cake

A more palatable formulation of the paradox of the stone whereby a stone is substituted with a cake and the act of lifting is substituted with the act of eating.

The unibrain strode into the conference room in unison at 8:45 AM. Each brain picked up his or her name badge: Brain 1, Brain 2, Brain 3, Brain 4, Brain 5, Brain 6, Brain 7. It seemed impersonal but, as the temp agency recruiter explained to each of the brains, it was a prerequisite of the job to surrender one's individual identity for the collective whole, a kind of cognitive communism. U Pluribus Unibrainum. 

Bagels were provided. All but one brain indulged. At precisely 9:00 AM the mysterious Hudson S. McMacMulligan appeared. McMacMulligan looked like Mr. Peanut but less aristocratic and less jovial. 

McMacMulligan stood before the conference table where the unibrain was seated and said the following: 

Ladies and gentleman, you are here today because of a dream I had a fortnight ago. I was in the deepest of deep slumbers when Paul Hogan, who is more commonly known as Crocodile Dundee on this continent, approached me at a bus station in Buffalo, NY. Before boarding a Greyhound for Toledo, Ohio, Mr. Hogan looked me in the eye and said, "Can God bake a cake so big he cannot eat it?" I awoke in a cold sweat and from that moment forward swore an oath to Paul Hogan and to myself: I, Hudson S. McMacMulligan, will dedicate my blood, my sweat, and my fortune to solving the paradox of the cake. 

Can God bake a cake so big he cannot eat it? That is the question before us. That is the unibrain teaser you are here to solve. By God, I do not mean any particular deity of any particular creed but rather the notion of an omnipotent being. As a unibrain, you are, I am certain, keenly aware of the nature of the paradox. Nevertheless, I shall state the nature of the paradox for the record. If God eats the cake, not only will it elevate his divine blood sugar but it will also mean that he is not omnipotent because he will have failed to bake a cake too big to eat. Yet—and this is what is most insidiously vexing—if he cannot eat the cake because it is too big to eat, then it means God is not omnipotent because an omnipotent being should be able to eat a cake of any size. I implore you, unibrain, to put your manymind to the task of resolving this paradox.

Brain 4 nibbled on her onion bagel as McMacMulligan exited the room. It was clear to her that God could not have his cake/not have his cake and be omnipotent too. It was also clear to her that it had slipped her mind and subsequently the entire unimind to have Mr. McMacMulligan sign the unibrain's timesheet.

#49 Unibrain drain

Emigration of the best and brightest unibrains to other countries.

Hudson S. McMacMulligan did indeed spend his last thousand dollars attempting to unravel the paradox of the cake. It was a vexing unibrain teaser but that was not the problem in his view. The problem was the substandard unibrain under his employ. As any of McMacMulligan's friends and foes alike will attest, he is not a man to cut corners on matters cranial and he is certainly not a man to mistake the symptom for the cause. The root cause, as outlined in legislation he presented to Congress on behalf of his elected Representative, was an antiquated immigration policy that had led to unprecedented unibrain drain and, consequently, to a dearth of able-minded unibrains in the United States. No reputable small business owner or chief executive officer would dispute this. McMacMulligan had to scrape the bottom of the brain barrel, which is clearly why he ended up with a feeble-manyminded unibrain that was incapacitated on its second day on the job by a unibrain freeze.  

#48 Unibrain teaser

A brain teaser so difficult it can only be solved by a unibrain.

After the unibrain freeze subsided, the unibrain set its collective mind to solving the unibrain teaser it had been hired to solve by the eccentric thousandaire, Hudson S. McMacMulligan, who had vowed to spend his last thousand dollars trying to solve a paradox that had come to him, he believed, in a dream: Can God bake a cake so big that he cannot eat it? Unbeknownst to McMacMulligan, this was not a novel paradox. It was essentially a reformulation of a classic paradox of omnipotence known as the paradox of the stone: Can an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that that omnipotent being cannot lift it? 

#47 Septafurcate

To branch into seven segments.

See coin #46 for usage.

#46 Unibrain freeze

Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, or brain freeze, as experienced by a collective mind.

It was a hot summer day and the unibrain, an extremely brainy brain trust hired by an eccentric thousandaire to work on a top secret project, emerged from its windowless office to find refreshment. And, find refreshment it did as it strode single file in synchrony toward a nearby 7-11. The unibrain was so thirsty that each brain within the unibrain simultaneously sipped an entire 78-oz Super Sour Watermelon Slurpee in a single sip from a single straw that septafurcated after the bendy part into seven separate but connected mini straws. The result was, inevitably, unibrain freeze.

#45 Paper Big Bird

Inverted paper tiger; an entity that appears non-threatening but effectual made to appear threatening but ineffectual.

In the opening presidential debate of the 2012 election, the GOP presidential candidate employed a novel rhetorical device—a paper Big Bird—to demonstrate how serious he was about reducing the federal deficit. The candidate vowed to stop borrowing money from China to subsidize the exploits of the admittedly lovable Muppet moocher, Big Bird, and his parent network, PBS, which leaches 0.12% of the federal budget annually.

#44 Findosaur

A newly discovered, or found, dinosaur species.

An overdue scientific report on the world's latest findosaur, Pegomastax africanus, was recently published after its fossil remains, which were filed away in a specimen drawer at Harvard for decades, were returned to South Africa for further analysis.

#43 Marmetiquette

Formal rules of conduct to be adhered to in the presence of polite marmot society.

The reasons why Raymond was shunned from a colony of wild yellow-bellied marmots in Yosemite National Park were obvious to the professional wildlife photographer and casual observer alike. He simply did not follow marmetiquette. Instead of sleeping below ground with the colony, he slept above ground, alone, in a Toyota Tercel. Instead of eating grasses, insects, and the occasional bird egg, he ate Twinkies, Hot Pockets, and Pringles. Instead of whistling to warn others of predators, he played a Huey Lewis and the News cassette tape from his car stereo when he saw a pack of coyotes approaching.

Root = Marmot + etiquette 

#42 Take a 7

To rest after a prolonged period of productivity.

Soil amended and seeds sown. Check. Crops harvested, canned, pickled, and preserved. Check. Grain silo erected and surpluses stockpiled. Check. Chicken coops built. Check. Livestock and beasts of burden bred and reared. Check. Rain barrels connected to water filtration and purification system. Check. Solar panels attached to roof, tax credit claimed. Check. Underground bunker built. Check. Antibiotics acquired through extralegal means and placed in lock box. Check. Small arsenal of automatic and semi-automatic weapons acquired through legal means and strewn about fully loaded. Check. Shortwave radio assembled from DIY kit. Check. Moat dug and filled with spikes. Check. 

Bert had done all he could on his little urban plot to prepare for the impending collapse of advanced industrial civilization. It was time to do as the Lord had done 6,000 years ago after toiling away on Creation for 6 days straight. It was time to take a 7 (and drink some home-brewed mead).

#41 Fact checkmate

A de facto defeat of a political opponent before an election via a winning fact-checking move.

“Fact checkmate,” said the gubernatorial candidate as he presented the local news anchor with irrefutable proof that the incumbent governor, contrary to public statements, was in fact using taxpayer money to build a private theme park modeled on Dollywood in his backyard.

#40 Bibliate

To read a book.

As doth the preacher pontificate the scholar bibliate.

#39 Snark floss

Waxed thread for removing particulate matter from one's fangs after issuing a snide remark.

Upon reading a terse email message from her boss requesting that she accelerate a four-week project into three days, Cora flipped her dark silken hair over her shoulder with a nonchalance that only the most confident of editors might possess. She gracefully slipped her right hand into the second drawer of her filing cabinet and withdrew a small plastic box. With purpose and determination, she strode into her boss' office, lay the box on the smooth mahogany surface of his credenza, and quietly stated "I may be quick, Sir, but in three days I will still have respect and your client will be dissatisfied." Without pausing at his blank stare, she removed a strand of snark floss from the box, deftly flicked several bits of utility reports and white board shards from her fangs, and promptly returned to her workstation.

Root = snark (snide remark) + floss

#38 Elevent

Unstable synthetic element that exists so briefly it is more event than element.

Hypotheses were hypothesized. Accelerators were activated. Isotopes were isolated. An elevent—ununtrium—was born and quickly dissolved into nothingness after the ephemeral union of zinc and bismuth ions. 

Root = element + event

#37 Jazzerseismic event

A seismic event induced by a Jazzercise session large enough to generate measurable seismic activity.

Milton Teagle Simmons appeared to Aldo in a dream and said: "The end is nigh. I shall sweat my final sweat to the most golden of golden oldies in the mall of malls, where Jazzercisers from all corners of the Earth shall converge." Immediately upon waking Aldo contacted his friend Rudolph, an aspiring Jazzerseismologist who claimed to have recorded the first Jazzerseismic event while observing the world's largest outdoor Jazzercise class in Tiananmen Square, and said, "Get ready!"

#36 Austyranny

Oppression of a populace via governmental austerity measures. 

Madrid and Athens erupted in violence as Spaniards and Greeks took to the streets in protest against austyranny.

Root = austerity + tyranny

#35 Telekinetiprompter

A telekinetically-controlled teleprompter.

Professor Charles Francis Xavier read from the telekinetiprompter, a device developed by Henry Philip "Hank" McCoy at the Xavier Institute, as he delivered the opening address to the U.N. General Assembly on the plight of mutants in the developing world.

Root = telekinetic + teleprompter

#34 Prepository

A syntactical suppository in the form of a preposition.

The editor spent 30 percent of her work day inserting prepositories into sentences to make them more regular.

Root = suppository + preposition

#33 Jobbesian

Of or relating to a job seeker's "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" attempt to find gainful employment in a depressed economy.

The real world, as Taylor observed, was nothing like college. First of all, there were not nearly as many Bob Marley posters around. Sure, the real world had libraries, food courts, and fitness centers. But, the libraries were filled with the homeless and unemployed. The food courts usually weren't in walking distance from where you lived and they didn't accept your student ID as a legitimate form of payment. And, fitness centers in the real world had way too many people over the age of 19. Again, your student ID got you nowhere. It was as worthless as the plastic it was fabricated from in Guangzhou. Worst of all, food and shelter aren't just there when you show up. You have to actually participate in what Taylor recalls his economics professor calling the "labor market." And this wasn't your typical labor market. It was positively jobbesian. Prospects for college grads were less than favorable, especially if you had a degree in American Auteur Theory Studies, as Taylor did. And on your resume, which disappointingly was not multiple choice, you couldn't even list your best accomplishments, like earning a Brigadier General III badge by getting to level 57 on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 for Xbox.

Root = job + Hobbesian

#32 Totaliterry cloth robe

Ostentatious terry cloth robe worn by totalitarian dictators.

Geopolitics was of little interest to Milton until the toppling of the Qaddafi regime flooded the market with some of the finest terry cloth robes in the world. As a connoisseur of all things terry cloth and all things camel hair, Milton knew the opportunity of a lifetime was at hand—a chance to acquire one of Qaddafi's prized totaliterry cloth robes from an auction at Christie's. The proceeds would benefit the fledgling post-Qaddafi transitional government but that was of little concern to Milton. Acquiring a one-of-a-kind totaliterry cloth robe was paramount, and Milton had his eye on one of Qaddafi's favorites. It was made from the finest Egyptian cotton (a Father's Day gift from Mubarek) and the most luxurious camel hair in the world. Each strand of camel hair was harvested from a rare free-range two-humped Bactrian camel inhabiting the remote steppes of the Taklamakan Desert, and then meticulously hand-dyed by an artisan camel-hair dyer, using only precious natural pigments produced by indigenous Oaxacan peasants who harvest clusters of female cochineal insects from prickly pear cacti and then pulverize their oval-shaped bodies into a natural dye. As a finishing touch, master embroiderers had stitched a monogram of the infamous fist sculpture (a Herculean fist rising from the earth and crushing a U.S. fighter jet) into the left lapel of the robe. Who in their right mind would not want this robe?

As Milton signed the papers to secure a home equity line of credit on his four-bedroom Cape Cod to raise funds for the totaliterry cloth robe, he closed his eyes and imagined what the otherworldly combination of terry cloth and camel hair would feel liked on his freshly powdered skin.

Root = totalitarian + terry cloth robe

#31 Theopanspermia

Hypothesis that religious belief was introduced to humanity via extraplanetary viral transmission.  
Man at bus stop: "Do you have the time?"

Me: "It's, uh, 4:37."

Man at bus stop: "Good. Now listen. Do you believe in God?"

Me: "Not really."

Man at bus stop: "The belief in God, in a God, whether it's polytheism or monotheism, it doesn't matter. The source is the same. It's a sickness."

Me: "Yeah..."

Man at bus stop: "No, I mean that literally. It's literally a sickness; it's an infection, a viral infection. From outer space."

Me: "Hmm..." 

Man at bus stop: "Religion was created by a highly advanced alien civilization. Very smart, a very smart race. Smarter than us. Way, way smarter. They were advanced enough to know that other advanced, sentient civilizations could pose a threat, eventually. So, they did what any rational civilization would do. They invented a virus that would infect the forebrain of intelligent life forms. You got a smoke?"

Me: "Sorry, no."

Man at bus stop: "Why you ask, did they do this? They did it to slow us down. What impedes progress more than religion? Few things. It's a hindrance to scientific progress, social progress, sexual progress, even moral progress. Think about it. All these people around the world killing each other in the name of religion. Been like that for a long time. Foolish, isn't it?"

Me: "Yeah, it is."

Man at bus stop: "The next obvious question is, how did they get the virus here? The universe is a big place. You can't just zip around in flying saucers like on TV. No, that's nuts. It's a waste of gas. You wouldn't have the resources to pull that off. Most civilizations don't. No sir. They did it the only way any rational civilization would do it. They built an army of solar-powered self-replicating robots to spread the virus. The robot lands on a comet, an asteroid, a meteorite. You know, they just settle in on that thing for little while, dig a hole, plant the virus. Their work is done and they move on to the next space rock. And the virus just lies there dormant. Just sits around biding its time. Playing virus solitaire. Doing push ups, you know. That's how it's devised. It just sits there waiting and waiting. It's hearty too. They build 'em hearty. Got to build 'em hearty because you got to be tough enough to tolerate the extreme temperatures of space, solar winds, radiation. All that hostile space stuff."

Me: "Wow."

Man at bus stop: "One of those little meteors eventually makes it's way to the Milky Way, sails right through the Kuiper belt, penetrates the Earth's atmosphere. Boom. Bang. Boom. You've got yourself the Chickxulub crater right off the Yucatan Peninsula. You know the rest of the story. The dinosaurs die off. Some little marmot-type critter survives, one thing leads to another, and you end up with monkeys who think they're too good to be monkeys. And, of course, you've got alien viruses lying dormant, just waiting to infect some poor mammal's brain. This is what theopanspermia is all about. It's in all mammals probably but only manifests itself in species with more advanced cognition. I'm thinking the virus uses some form of bacteria as a delivery mechanism. That would make the most sense. Oxygen, I gather, is the catalyst that brings the bacteria to life, which spreads all over the place willy-nilly. You know, that stuff's everywhere. Spores. In the gut. In the water, on land, in the sky. It's everywhere. Stuff's everywhere. It's a Trojan horse for the virus. If we ever find a cure for religion and get rid of it, like Lenon said, we'll probably start programming the viruses ourselves. You got the time?"

Root: theism + panspermia

#30 Amomiorate

To make better by invoking the assistance of one's mommy.

Looking at the big red "C" on the top of her trigonometry mid-term exam sent a tremor of terror down Elizabeth's spine. Her heart began to race. Her eyes began to tear up. Her anguish, however, quickly metamorphosed into moral outrage. It was besides the point that she had not studied for several weeks. She would not stand for this indignity, for this affront on her GPA, this existential threat to her college admission plans. She knew she had to act quickly to amomiorate the situation.  

Root = ameliorate + mommy

#29 Sleight of wad

A technique used to make a tip appear greater than it actually is.

The tightwad didn’t want the waitress, or other customers, to think he was a tightwad, at least not while he hung around to get his bottomless cup’s worth of coffee. So, he did what any tightwad would do. Through sleight of wad he folded three singles so artfully they appeared to be nine.

#28 Cogitator tots

Little nuggets of crispy deep-fried thought.

After stumbling upon nearly a decade's worth of semi-mildewy issues of Reader's Digest in his Aunt Tilly's basement, Milton read through all of the "Quotable Quotes" in every edition from 1983 to 1989. It was a veritable feast of empty intellectual calories. And, Milton knew that Gorging himself on so many cogitator tots would inevitably lead to a severe case of cognitive indigestion.

#27 Metaphysical malpractice insurance

Liability insurance that helps protect metaphysicians and other metaphysical practitioners against litigation related to the practice of metaphysics.

Sophie the Seer was a tough sell, but Hudson wasn't giving up. No, that's not how you become "Regional Metaphysical Malpractice Insurance Salesman of the Year" three years in a row. Hudson extended his rate sheet across the crystal ball so the seer could take a closer look. “Our premiums really can’t be beat. And, we offer the most extensive coverage in the region—we cover mystics, fortune tellers, paranormal investigators, mind readers, astrologers, clairvoyants, palmists, numerologists.” Without saying a word, the seer inhaled deeply on her Marlboro Light and cast a skeptical look on Hudson. "Listen Sophie, the last thing you need is some spurned lover filing a malpractice suit against you. You'll lose everything. Buy our coverage, for a modest premium, and you'll be protected.”

#26 Malthusiate

To pontificate on matters apocalyptic or cataclysmic; to make dire predictions or issue ominous warnings. 

Cassandra refused to accompany George to dinner parties because she knew, if given the opportunity, he would Malthusiate at great length, especially if anyone broached the topic of greenhouse gas emissions or peak oil.

#25 Godless send

The non-religious equivalent of a godsend. 

Just as the flood waters reached the gutters of the duplex, a rescue boat appeared out of nowhere. The resident of 48A, a devout religious man, believed it to be a godsend. The resident of 48B, a closet atheist, believed the arrival of the rescue boat had nothing to do with divine intervention. It was, simply, a godless send.

#24 Trimjectory

The path a trimjectile follows through space as a function of time.

After tossing her Chicken Fresca with Chardonnay Café Steamer into the trash bin, Natalie was ready to focus on the task at hand—harnessing the computational power of Microsoft Excel to calculate the trimjectory needed to arc her trimjectile over the cube wall and into Nevin's cup of probiotic yogurt.

Root = trim + trajectory

#23 Trimjectile

A fingernail or toenail projected through space via a propulsive force such as nail clipper.

It was a typical Monday. The lunch hour had come to a close and Natalie had slipped her left foot out of her shoe and placed it on the edge of her desk. Her weekly office grooming ceremony would soon commence, and Nevin knew it was only a matter of time until a stray trimjectile would arc over his cube wall and either make direct contact with his face or land in his cup of probiotic yogurt. 

Root = trim + projectile

#22 Right of tray

Legal or accepted right of way of a tray carrier, whether pedestrian or vehicular, to proceed ahead of another.

My heart began to beat rapidly as I took the witness stand. As the prosecutor approached me, my mind went blank and I was transported back to the night of the accident—to the ghastly site of two tray buggies colliding into each other, to the horrendous aftermath of Swedish meatballs and lingonberries strewn about cashiers and innocent bystanders. The fate of two men, one with a sprained ankle and one with a stubbed toe, was now in my hands. 

The lawyer's thundering voice brought me back to the courtroom. "Did my client, Bernardo M. Myslinski, as he pushed his double-decker tray buggy to the cash register, wanting nothing more than to rest his feet and enjoy a peaceful meal of baked salmon with vegetable medallions after navigating the seemingly endless corridors of the showroom floor...Did my client, a hard-working father of two, have right of tray as he departed the food counter and headed toward the cash register station when the defendant—who, if I may remind the ladies and gentleman of the jury, was pushing an uninsured tray buggy and texting while driving, as some witnesses have attested—came careening out of the ordering line from in front of the dessert display to sideswipe my client?"