12 Super Weird Words That Will Confound You

I’m a bit of a word freak, as some of you can probably tell from a few of my past entries. Today, I’ve made up a brand new list of really weird words that have even weirder meanings. I’ve never used any of them in speech or writing (you have to be a bit nuts or hoity-toity to do that) but they’re so deliciously odd that I just had to write about them. So here they are: Weird words, what I thought they meant and what they really do mean.

1 Animadversion sounds like a movie genre, an animated movie. And the Oscar for the best animadversion goes to … drumroll … Avatar! I don’t care what those people at the Academy say. But guess what: It really means seriously harsh criticism. Like someone being all animadversionistic (is this even a word?) about your writing and how bad it sucks.

2 Bacchanal may sound like some Amish country’s version of the Cu Chi tunnel but it really means a very, very happening party. Wild, rowdy, gloriously debauched. Apparently, this word came from Bacchus, the Greek god of ecstasy, mad revelry and drunken orgies. What a cool, fun god. I think I like him better than the god of fire and brimstone.

3 Bildungsroman has gotta be one of the weirder ones I’ve heard. It sounds like – what else – Romanesque architecture. I’m thinking the Colosseum, the Basilica, Corinthian columns, majestic arches but nope, bildungsroman means a coming-of-age story. Who would’ve thunk?? Oh wait. I know who: Somebody with a way hotter vocabulary than I do.

4 Blandishment is when you whip out a sword or something equally deadly, you know, like a super sharp fork. It’s not too different from people running around brandishing knives. Sounds about right, except that you’re wrong. To blandish someone means to coax, flatter, cajole, persuade. So we should all be wary of being blandished into doing something unscrupulous.

5 Confabulate reminds me of ‘commiserate’, so in the same way a bunch of people commiserate with one another (ie. whine over their misfortune together), another bunch of people confabulate with one another (ie. congratulate one another on their mutual fabulousness in a pretentious, frou frou, air-kissing kind of way). But confabulate actually means chat. So we can say, “Shall we proceed to indulge in an hour of confabulation?” when we really mean, “Hey, wanna go bitch by the water-cooler for an hour?”

6 Deus ex machina is such a sinister word, way up there with ‘venom’, ‘draconian’ and ‘luciferous’. Immediate picture that springs to my mind is: Arnie the Terminator. Steely-eyed, stoic-faced killer robot. But deus ex machine really means a timely solution to a problem. So it’s like a good thing. I can just hear this at my next meeting, “Come on guys, we gotta figure out the day-oos-eks-ma-keen-uh to this grotty problem!”

7 Dyslogistic sounds like a close cousin of ‘dysfunction’, so it probably means that the logistics of a project got screwed up. Like when someone is supposed to deliver fifteen pork buns to the seminar meeting room and sends twelve curry puffs instead. But it really means disapproval. As in, she gave me a dyslogistic glare when I suggested she go for a bikini wax.

8 Gorgonise is a pretty ugly word, isn’t it? To gorgonise someone sounds like a horrifying eyeball-gouging exercise. Oh lord, look how those soldiers are gorgonising the prisoners at the concentration camp. But it actually means to astound someone with your … beauty. You heard right: Beauty. The ability to gorgonise someone is, therefore, an ability many women long to have.

9 Luciferous is a no-brainer: Satanic, of course. It’s generally not a good thing when people think you’re the spawn of Satan, like you’re straddling the second highest rung of the Evil Ladder. But guess what: Luciferous really means illuminating, giving insight. Why they named something so positive after the arch enemy of God, I’ll never know.

10 Nugatory is where nuggets go after they die. That is, if it were pronounced nuh-ga-toh-ree. But it’s pronounced noo-guh-toh-ree, in which case it means where nougats go after they die. The level to which I will go to amuse myself is mind-boggling (and disturbing at the same time). But nugatory really means worthless. “Of all the nugatory tasks we’ve got to do here, swatting flies has got to be the worst.”

11 Pulchritude is another really ugly word and sounds like it’s got something to do with being repulsed. For instance, your pulchritude sickens me to the bone. But it really means … beauty. You heard right: Beauty. So, a sentence like, “Behold, thy pulchritude doth gorgoniseth me” would actually make a woman in a Shakespearean novel swoon.

12 Toothsome is another no-brainer: Of course, it would have something to do with teeth and plenty of ‘em! Perhaps it’s a description of somebody with a toothy smile, a mouthful of pearly whites, a straight row of spanking Chiclets. But it really means … beauty. You heard right. Again. A handsome woman, I can accept, but a toothsome one? So what is ugly? Toothnone. But hey, don’t take my word for it – look it up.

PS: If you feel like learning a few new words for no reason other than to amuse yourself (or laugh at me), click here.

Pardon Mwah French

Sure, we know that all languages borrow (read: steal) from one another all the time, craftily slipping a foreign word into its lexicon, changing one tiny letter and then, tacitly claiming ownership. After a while, the word is so commonly used that we think it’s English when it’s not.

Of course, there are words we all know had been so obviously dragged kicking and screaming from another language. Words such as habitué (French), raison d’être (French) and dénouement (French again!). The accented letter … the difficult pronunciation … the blatantly high level of pretentiousness you exude whenever you use them … these are all killer giveaways. But there are those that aren’t quite so obvious. Like who knows ‘memorabilia’ is Latin, ‘honcho’ is Japanese and ‘wanderlust’ is German? Okay okay, so some people probably do but I certainly wasn’t one of them. Here are 15 more that I have – until recently – thought were English.

1   Alibi (Latin)

Means ‘excuse’ but in a more serious, witnesses-required kind of way. It’s like when your boss asks you where the hell you were all day and you tell him/her you were at a meeting and drag a colleague in to back you up. That’s an alibi. Without your witness, you’re just plain lying.

2   Angst (German)

Means ‘fear’ or ‘anxiety’ in a very severe, troubled-soul, on the verge of self-mutilation kind of way.  It’s not the same kind of ‘anxiety’ you experience when you catch a rat scampering wildly around your kitchen or when you’re about to give a speech in front of a bunch of people.

3   Camaraderie (French)

Means ‘comradeship’ and ‘fellowship’, just in a prettier way. It’s like when you’ve enjoyed a 10-year relationship of trust with your colleague. It’s nicer to call it camaraderie instead of ‘comradeship’ (as if you’d been serving in a Communist regime) or ‘fellowship’ (as if you’d been in a church choir).

4   Chagrin (French)

Means ‘great annoyance’. It’s like when somebody finishes all the water in the water dispenser bottle and doesn’t put in a new one and you have to do it yourself … much to your chagrin (!!!!).

5   Critique (French)

Means a ‘measured assessment’ – it is objective, well-thought out and balanced. Somebody who comes to you and tells you that your work sucks to high heaven is not critiquing your work. He/she is criticising your work.

6   Diva (Italian)

Means ‘accomplished female singer’ but the word has expanded to include men, actors, athletes, celebrities, makeup artists, hairstylists, supermodels, wrestlers, chefs, architects, writers, doctors, bakers and butchers. Basically, anyone who is egotistical and insufferable.

7   Hubris (Greek)

Means ‘arrogance’ but not your everyday arrogance. It’s the kind of arrogance where you think you are God and own the planet. Then one day, God gets tired of your hubris and strikes you dead. So hubris is arrogance followed by God coming to bite you in the backside.

8   Idiot savant (French)

Means ‘learned idiot’ – somebody who’s a complete moron in some areas and a complete genius in another. For instance, a person who can’t tie his own shoelaces but can remember the birthday and vital stats of every boy band member since the birth of mankind.

9   Incommunicado (Spanish)

Means ‘solitary confinement’, which can be involuntary (like if you’re in prison and beat someone up and then get locked up away from everyone as punishment) or involuntary (like if your colleagues are driving you crazy and you go to Penang to be incommunicado).

10 Malaise (French)

Means ‘feeling sick’ but not in a physical way. It’s like when you work in a really ugly office with fluorescent lighting and mud-brown carpeting. Everybody who works there is in a general state of malaise – just feeling ill at ease all the time.

11 Maven (Yiddish)

Means ‘expert’ and is a word that’s used way too often in women’s magazines. Everybody is a style maven. The qualification? Carrying an eight thousand dollar box clutch and being able to pronounce Yves Saint Laurent without flinching.

12   Pique (French)

Means ‘wounded pride’ at its worst and ‘stimulate’ at its best. We (and by ‘we’, I mean me) tend to over-use it in the shamefully unimaginative “pique one’s curiosity” instead of “he was piqued by his agent’s lack of enthusiasm over his work.”

13   Spiel (German)

Means ‘sales routine’, obviously used in a pejorative sense, of course. It’s like when you go to what you think is a free all-you-can-eat buffet only to find yourself forced to listen to some guy’s spiel on timeshare vacation packages.

14   Vendetta (Italian)

Means ‘blood-thirsty revenge’ and is as horrifying as it sounds, at least in its original meaning. Of course, today, we have personal vendettas against everybody and more often than not, they consist of nothing more than giving someone the evil eye and praying for a wart infestation.

15   Furore (Italian)

Means ‘excitement’ but with a dash of outrage thrown into the mix. It’s like when you think all the shoes in the bargain bin are 70% off when they’re really only 50% off. That’s when a furore is unleashed. Frenzy! Rage!! Uproar!!!

10 Words That Don’t Mean The Way They Sound

Remember how I used to be a dork and would read the dictionary and print out words I didn’t understand and UHU glue them into my spiral notebook and draw pictures next to them? No wait. I still do that. Anyway, I was leafing through my word journal the other day, on a wild Stabilo highlighter rampage, when I saw words that used to flummox me. Unlike some that reveal their meanings simply by the way they sound, these do the complete opposite:

1.        ESCHEW

I thought maybe ‘eschew’ meant some special style of chewing, as in “he eschewed the turkey” or maybe it was chewing gum-related … until I read a sentence that went something like “the wife eschewed her husband” and I thought, whoa, that can’t be right (unless it was a report on cannibalism, in which case it made perfect sense). ‘Eschew’ really means to avoid or to shun. Even after I understood what it meant, every time I hear ‘eschew’, I still picture two pieces of gum being pulled apart (hence the avoiding) but still connected by the sticky elastic strands that’ll stretch as far as you can pull them. Whatever God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Haha.

2.        SOPORIFIC

I first heard this word from a friend who’d said, “I’m feeling so soporific” while we were walking back to the car in the parking lot. First, I thought, who talks like this??? Next, I thought, ‘soporific’ sounded like ‘horrific’ and something soppy-related – a horrific fear of the soppy, perhaps? It was daytime, we weren’t in a reenactment of P2 so it wasn’t a particularly nightmarish experience and it wasn’t raining, so nothing … um, sopped. Later that day, I dictionaried the word and found that it meant ‘sleepy’. My first reaction: such a big word to mean such a simple thing! My second reaction: thank god it wasn’t a disease or anything cos I’d earlier agreed with my friend – without knowing what it meant – that I too, had been feeling somewhat ‘soporific’.

3.        LARCENY

Say ‘larceny’ and I think of a style that harks back to the prudish and musty Victorian era. Say ‘grand larceny’ and I think of um, an extra elaborate style that harks back to the prudish and musty Victorian era. You know, all fluff and flounce – the crinoline cage skirt and frou frou petticoats, ridiculously tight corsets, the frilliest and daintiest umbrellas and a bunch of ladies who speak like something’s crawling up their butts. Ah, what a purdy picture. But what it really means is theft! Go figure.

4.        HITHERTO

‘Hitherto’ is another one … except that it didn’t even sound like a word in the first place. More like the name of a really hunky Spanish guy. Antonio! Ronaldo! Roberto! Cristiano!! Fabio!!! You know, some Adonis archetype on the cover of a tacky romance novel – wild mane of hair flowing in the wind, chest practically bursting open because of his ginormous stallion-like pecs. But really, ‘hitherto’ really means ‘until now’ … as in “she had hitherto been unemployed and feeding her seven kids on Giant food coupons” … or something like that.

5.        MALAPROPISM

If I had to venture a wild guess, I’d have thought ‘malapropism’ was the art of creating secondary stage props. Perhaps a prop of secondary importance, you know, like the Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil in a play about Adam and Eve would be the main prop (alphapropism) and the shrub would be the secondary prop (malapropism). “Hey, where is the malaprop?? Get the malaprop out here pronto!!!” But what ‘malapropism’ really means is an unintentional mix-up of similar-sounding words. So inarticulate (read: dumb) people can suffer from malapropism, like suffering from a disease.

6.        CHOLERIC

Speaking of disease, that’s what I used to think ‘choleric’ was. I imagined all the characters in the movie ‘Love in the time of Cholera’ to be very, very, very … choleric. You travel to certain parts of the world like South America, Africa and or Asia and you become choleric and you can like, you know, die right? Wrong. A person who is choleric is a person who’s extremely irritable, easily angered, like she’s on the verge of being pissed off all the time. In other words, she suffers from a severe case of bitchiness. It’s a trait that, unfortunately, can’t be cured by restricting your travels only to first world countries or by avoiding raw seafood (or raw anything, actually). Come to think of it, maybe being ‘choleric’ isn’t that much different from having a disease after all.

7.        SEMANTICS

I imagine ‘semantics’ to be a group of people who pray to insects. They wear ankle-length skirts in the drabbest of colours, balance towering bouffants on their heads, have blank expressions on their naked faces and make a career out of breeding children. No wait, that’s the women of the FLDS. But isn’t that what ‘semantics’ sounds like anyway? Like some kind of cult or at least a field of theology, like apologetics. Or the study of insects. It sounds like everything except what it really means: the study of the meaning of words. It also means the language used in order to elicit a certain response (like how that copywriter used certain words to con you into thinking that his product can help you lose 10 pounds in 12 minutes).

8.        SOBRIQUET

I love ‘sobriquet’. Read it in a magazine years ago and was struck by how pretty it sounded. I imagined it to mean a fancy type of sorbet you could only find in Paris. A big beautiful bouquet made up of a dozen mini sorbets – from minty green to candy floss pink, lemon yellow to snowy white … little frozen bulbs of colour. So purdy. Its real meaning has nothing to do with a frozen dessert though. ‘Sobriquet’ really means nickname (cue sound of balloon deflating – pffftttt). Nickname as in, my name is Pierre Antonio Ng and my sobriquet is Ah Kow. Talk about a major disappointment.

9.        ERSATZ

There’s something about a word with an ‘s’ and a ‘z’ that’s just especially glamorous … I love it. Can easily imagine the word up in lights on a huge billboard, flashing brilliantly for all the world to see. What ‘ersatz’ really means though, is an inferior imitation, which is weird cos it sounds way more exciting than ‘original’. I’m thinking fancy haute couture brand … Emilio Ersatz, Yves Ersatz, Emporio Ersatz. Isn’t it weird to think that an ersatz director – which sounds way fab – is actually derogatory? That means Petaling Street is replete with ersatz branded goods!

10.     REPLETE

Speaking of ‘replete’, this was another word that surprised me. At first discovery, I thought it meant to empty or to reduce. After all, it sounded a lot like delete or deplete. How was I supposed to know that just a change of one letter could make such a huge difference? ‘Replete’ really means abounding, filled to satiation and, my favourite definition, gorged (now here’s a word that means exactly the way it sounds)!

The Art Of Cussing @#&@%#$!!!

I’m going to come clean (or dirty, depending on how you see it). I’m a big advocate of cussing. Just like fruits, vegetables and exercise, cussing is good for your health and helps you cope with life.

I’ve always known this and now, I have the evidence to prove it: a bunch of psychologists at Keele University in Britain put two groups of students thru a bit of pain and discovered that the group that was allowed to cuss like sailors had a higher pain tolerance than the group that was only allowed to say things related to a table. Read more here.

I can certainly vouch for that. I swear that cussing has helped me through some seriously rough patches. Having said that, cussing isn’t something you just mindlessly do. Just like any other skill or art form, it requires thought, careful practice and discipline – especially if you want to reap its benefits.

1. Never over-cuss. Cussing should only be saved for special occasions (ie. when you’re super-pissed). It’s not for regular everyday conversation like, “Hang on, I gotta go park my f***ing car and put some f***ing coins into the f***ing machine.” Hello, you’re not in Pulp Fiction, you know. When you over-cuss, there is no impact and it becomes ineffective.

2. The grandma rule. You never cuss in front of your mother or grandmother. It’s also generally not acceptable in front of your boss or client or during a business presentation.

3. Do not abuse the cuss. You don’t cuss when you’re happy or excited as this is cussing out of context. Cussing wasn’t invented for you to express happy thoughts. “That shepherd’s pie was f***ing fantastic!!!” is just wrong.

4. Always about, never at. You cuss about somebody; you don’t cuss at somebody. That’s just asking to start a fight. And that’s dumb, especially if you’re a 100-pound weakling and can’t even wrestle a lollipop away from a two year old baby.

5. Be selective. There are tons of cuss words out there and each one was specifically invented to serve a different purpose. So, always use the right cuss word that accurately reflects the degree of rage that’s bubbling inside.

For instance, mild options like ‘damn’ and ‘crap’ are appropriate when you drop a donut on the floor. ‘Shit’ and ‘hell’ are appropriate when you drop a donut on the floor and somebody steps on it. ‘F***’ (and words of the Cantonese variety, most of which are too filthy to appear on my blog) are for when you drop a donut on the floor, somebody steps on it, slips, crashes into you and causes you to fall and throw your back all out of whack.

6. Keep it real. To cuss is to be honest, so when you do it, you have to do it with gusto, let it rip, hold nothing back. You have to have the right facial expression and physical force to go along with it (you don’t say a cuss word; you spit it out). Only then will you truly enjoy the benefits of cussing. If not, you’re just a poser and there’s nothing worse than a wannabe-cusser.

7. Cussing loves company. When cussing in front of people, make sure they’re the right people. They must be people who cuss too and won’t go all bug-eyed and judge you. Cussing in front of non-cussers is demoralising and you’ll wind up depressed and want to stab yourself with a butter knife.

15 Words To Use In Your Next Conversation

This post isn’t about big words. It’s just words I really, really like – maybe because of the way they look or sound or stuff they make me think of. So here they are – read them and make a solemn vow to use them at least one time. Trust me. It’ll be fun.

(1) MORIBUND

First of all, I like this word because it looks to me like a Japanese word. Something very Asian about it – the ‘mori’ and the ‘bund’ like Shanghai Bund. Of course, the actual meaning is approaching death, which is rather funny. “Ooh, are we feeling moribund today?”

(2) SCHOOLMARMISH

Schoolmarmish means someone who has the matronly qualities of teacher in a kampong. I’m seeing unkempt hair, poorly applied makeup, horribly unfashionable apparel and heels never exceeding half an inch. Someone who is strict and is a stickler for rules. ‘Marm’ is similar in sound to ‘mom’ though not in a warm, nice maternal way; but in a more unflattering way.

(3) POMPOUS

Something about the word pompous which sounds so inflated, full of self-importance. Look at this: pomp and pageantry. The word even looks pretty on a page – maybe it’s the circular shape of the letters P and O and another O and the sleek curve of the U. I think a little dose of pomposity is endearing and quite funny – maybe that’s why I liked Frasier so much back when it was on TV.

(4) MONGER

We all know the neighbourhood fishmonger but I like how ‘monger’ can be attached almost like a suffix to any other thing you’re peddling – eg. fearmongering, pornmongering, etc. Just picture a bunch of smarmy, middle-aged men peddling little jars labeled with scare tactics like ‘death’, ‘regret’ or ‘pain’ in the pasar.

(5) ENNUI

First of all, I love the way this word looks. So unusual. Almost foreign. I also love the way it’s pronounced: ohn-wee. Isn’t that exotic? It means oppressive boredom, like when you’re stuck listening to some droning ignoranus and you’re slipping into a sea of ennui, you know, before you proceed into a state of moribund. *snore*

(6) VACUOUS

I heard this years ago on Monty Python’s Flying Circus when this guy went to John Cleese asking to buy an argument. They get into a fight and John Cleese yells, “Don’t give me that, you snotty faced heap of parrot droppings! … Shut your festering gob, you tit! Your type really makes me puke, you vacuous, toffy-nosed, malodorous pervert!!!” – hahahahaaa!! That was so damn funny I still remember it today and still love the word vacuous (stupid) along with snotty (conceited), gob (a small lump) and malodorous (stinky).

(7) FLUMMOX

Sounds to me like a vacuum cleaner brand (I grew up with Electrolux, what can I say?). Flummox means confused, perplexed. Say flummoxed and I imagine a person with eyeballs as wide as saucers, practically bulging out of his sockets; mouth rounded into a perfect ‘O’, eyebrows twisted into knots. Flummox is a funny-sounding, funny-looking word.

(8) SMARMY

This is someone we’d call ‘damn yong sui’ – someone with a face so sleazy, so oily (figuratively, of course) and with so much insincerity oozing out of every pore that you just want to bitch-slap the smarm out of them. Beadle, the evil Judge Turpin’s idiot sidekick in Sweeney Todd comes to mind. Timothy Spall played him so well and was so horribly repulsive that I squirmed in my seat the whole time.

(9) HEBETUDE

I remember seeing this word in an article in Time magazine many years ago, “… in a terminal funk of hebetude and sloth …” and fell in love with it. It’s an odd-looking little word. While it means mental lethargy or dullness, the word itself doesn’t really reflect it. It’s also cool that until today, ‘hebetude’ is still underlined in Word as a misspelled word. Haha.

(10) SPIEL

You know that scene in the Exorcist when the girl pukes? (Blech) That’s what I imagine spiel to be. While the actual definition is to say something at great length to persuade (I say con!) someone into doing something, to me, there’s just something very negative about spiel. Even the pronunciation of the word … it isn’t a word you say, it’s a word you spit out. Talk about verbal diarrhea.

(11) MEGALOMANIA

There’s something so wonderfully maniacal about this word. It sounds so pompous (yay!) and evil. The world is full of megalomaniacs – even those with a little authority can suffer from megalomania. What was really funny was this episode of The Office when resident sycophant Dwight becomes drunk with power when he gets to decide which of his colleagues would have to work over the weekend. “This is so sad. This is the smallest amount of power I’ve ever seen go to someone’s head,” Jim says. That was so funny.

(12) SLUGABED

Slugabed speaks for itself: a late sleeper. This is my nickname for my boyfriend who’s a loyal member of a species that can slug around in bed until the ungodly hour of 2pm. Of course, he also goes to bed at the ungodly hour of 6am on a regular basis. I will never understand the concept, not even if I live to be a hundred.

(13) DOUR

Someone with a sour face. When I see this word, I picture an overweight woman, scornful expression etched on her puffy features, lips so thin that they resemble bent razor blades, patches of powdery dough all over her face. In one hand is a rolling pin while the other’s perched on her ample hip. She’s standing in an almost combative pose. Yup. That’s what I see when I see ‘dour’.

(14) CLAPTRAP

I loved the phrase ‘unctuous claptrap’ so much that I wrote it down in my dictionary. Claptrap is almost onomatopoeic (a word that sounds like the sound made by the thing it’s referring to – come again?). Claptrap means empty language – yammer yammer yammer, blah blah blah, etc. Come to think of it, maybe claptrap should be craptrap. Hey, I just invented a neologism! Craptrap: empty language that’s also full of sh*t.

(15) TROGLODYTE

I love troglodyte. It means a Neanderthal that lives in a hole. Hahaha … that pretty much describes men in general, doesn’t it? Offense intended. But I like this word because it looks so troll-like. I think Hunchback of Notre-Dame. I think shriveled, skeletal gargoyles. I think Smeagol. I think Benjamin Button before he turned into Brad Pitt.

Some Of My Favourite ‘Words’

I love words. I used to read and re-read dictionaries and vocabulary textbooks for fun. Not only that. I’d jot down words that I’d read and don’t understand …

… or just list down the ones I particularly like…

… Every few months, I’d re-type all the words I’d scribbled in the pages and alphabetise them to create my own quarterly dictionary …

… I’d find out the meaning and then construct sentences out of them, like back in school. No wait. We never did that in school. We did lousy useless things like decide who had better moral values: Ahmad who helped the old woman cross the road or Ah Seng who stole ten bucks from his uncle.

Anyways, I was reading Time magazine when I came across an article on the newfangled concept of Carrotmobbing. In it was the word ‘slacktivist’ – “slackers who care about causes just enough to sign online petitions … but lack the time, money or drive to do much else.” I love it!!! It’s absolutely brilliant!

Then I got that nice warm feeling that I usually get when I come across a clever neologism. And that reminded me of my dictionary – there’s a page in there where I listed some really cool neologisms, which I will now share with you:

1. Karmageddon: everybody sends out bad vibes; vibes so bad that the world explodes and we all die.
2. Decafalon: struggling to get through one whole day without caffeine.
3. Flatulence: the ambulance that picks you up after you’ve been flattened by a steamroller.
4. Cashtration: buying something that renders you permanently financially impotent.
5. Sarchasm: the huge chasm between someone with sarcastic wit and the one who doesn’t get it
6. Ignoranus: someone who is both stupid and an asshole – this is my favourite because I know so many of them!

Pedants and language purists will argue that hey, these are not Real Words. Aiya, if we were confined only to words inscribed onto the hallowed pages of Oxford or Merriam-Webster, where got fun? Then we can’t say things like “MSN me” or “stop googling him la”. And here in Malaysia, worse. We don’t just combine the meanings of two words to make up a new word; we combine a whole bunch of languages: “You don’t ter-gostan and step on his tilam la. After he mengamok then you know.”

For the record, I’ve used the above sentence before in reference to a little two-year-old terror who’d shriek to high heaven if anyone ever dared lay a finger on his mattress. I swear I’m not making this up.

So anyway, what’s the point of this post? Oh yeah, here it is:

1. People who read dictionaries are nerds.
2. It’s good to know words people don’t know – it makes you look smart.
3. I’ve run out of points.