It’s Thursday: time to get into it with mangled metaphors, idioms, and other valiant-but-failed attempts at figurative language. The results are inadvertent yet successful attempts at levity, jocularity, and generally increased levels of dopamine.

I destroy and recombine perfectly serviceable metaphors, idioms, and other innocents on a regular basis. Because I avidly collect others’ with glee, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve heard them called malaphors and malaprops, but I strongly disagree with using malaprop as any part of a description; first, because the term is ill-applied in an ironic twist (malaprops are intentional attempts to sound grand); and second, because mal itself, meaning “bad” is simply untrue—fun with words is never bad!

I’d go for something like risiphor or ridiphor, using the Latin risus, past participle of ridere "to laugh," meaning "laughable, capable of exciting laughter, comical" + pherein "to carry, bear" (from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children"). The result? “bearing laughter offspring.” Perfect!

As a bonus, who could resist saying, “That is patently risiphorous!” or “Another great ridiphor, Brutus!”

Although it bothers some who actually get these expressions right, the endless combinations that the rest of us come up with deserve a wide-girthed mirth berth.

And, even though these might technically appear to be…well…mistakes, I think they show a lack of rigidity at worst, and a creative brilliance at best. In fact, an utterance combining more than two original elements is golden in my book.

So, I say we enjoy these twisted treasures for all they’re cracked up to be. As my daughter used to say when she was but a wee sass, “Mom, that tickles my timbers!”

Happily, it’s genetic.

Olive this week’s tangled tropes are coined from convention by the most loosely-linked winks at classic dicta.

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I spilled spot remover on my dog.

Now he's gone.

- Steven Wright

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Ichthyo- is a word-forming element meaning "fish" from the Latinized form of Greek ikhthys "a fish.”

We have:

• ichthyology (ik-thee-ol’-uh-jee) - the study of fish

• ichtheology - the study of fish as holy metaphor (kidding—you know I make stuff up, but I will always tell you when it is verbaloney. This is some serious verbaloney)

• ichthyoid - a fish or fishlike vertebrate

• ichthyosaur - any of various extinct marine reptiles of the group Ichthyosauria or Ichthyopterygia of the Mesozoic Era, having a long flexible body with fins and an elongated, toothed snout.

• ichthyomancy - a form of divination involving the head or entrails of fishes

• ichthyolite - low-fat fish (kidding)—it’s a fish fossil

For the title, I created my own combining form for this week’s whacked wet words, which have been unceremoniously tossed into the automatic idiomatic agitation cycle of my weird word washer: ichthyo + grins, or 🐟+😆😆

I guess instead of a fish story or a guilty grin, it would be a fishy grin.

What the heck is a Minced Metaphor, anyway?

I’ve heard them called malaphors and malaprops, but I strongly disagree with using malaprop as any part of a description; first, because the term is ill-applied in an ironic twist (malaprops are intentional attempts to sound grand); and second, because mal itself, meaning “bad” is simply untrue—fun with words can never be bad!

I’d go for something like risiphor or ridiphor, using the Latin risus, past participle of ridere "to laugh," meaning "laughable, capable of exciting laughter, comical" + pherein "to carry, bear" (from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children"). The result? “bearing laughter offspring.” Perfect!

As a bonus, who could resist saying, “That is patently risiphorous!” or “Another great ridiphor, Max!”

Although it bothers some who actually get these expressions right, the endless combinations that the rest of us come up with deserve a wide-girthed mirth berth.

Even though these might technically appear to be…well…mistakes, I think they show a lack of rigidity at worst, and a creative brilliance at best. Some combine up to three otherwise independent sayings.

As my daughter used to say when she was but a wee sass, “Mom, that tickles my timbers!” Here is another one of hers that still makes us lose it:

“Dad, I think you're trying to fry a bigger fish than you can catch!”

Happily, it’s genetic.

* “Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur King, you and all your silly English k-nnnnniggets.”

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Bravery

We will speak on; we will be heard;
Though all earth's systems crack,
We will not bate a single word,
Nor take a letter back.

We speak the truth; and what care we
For hissing and for scorn
While some faint gleaming we can see
Of Freedom's coming morn!

Let liars fear; let cowards shrink;
Let traitors turn away;
Whatever we have dared to think,
That dare we also say.


—James Russell Lowell

This poem is in the public domain, originally published in

POEMS WITH POWER

TO

STRENGTHEN THE SOUL

COMPILED AND EDITED BY

JAMES MUDGE

REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION

THE ABINGDON PRESS

NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO

Copyright, 1907, 1909, by
EATON & MAINS

Biographical notes are from poets.org

https://poets.org/poet/james-russell-lowell

James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on February 22, 1819, the son of the Reverend Charles Lowell and Harriet Spence. He attended William Wells School and Harvard University, where he graduated with a degree in law. However, Lowell had no interest in pursuing a career in that field. Shortly after graduating from Harvard, in 1841, he published his first collection of poems, A Year’s Life (C. C. Little and J. Brown), inspired by the poet Maria White, whom he would marry three years later.

An ardent abolitionist, Lowell published widely in many anti-slavery newspapers, such as the Pennsylvania Freeman and the Anti-Slavery Standard. He also published a number of literary essays, political pamphlets, and satirical works, such as The Biglow Papers, a series of satirical verses written in opposition to the Mexican War.

Lowell authored multiple poetry books, including the collections Poems: Second Series (B. B. Mussey and Co., 1848) and Poems (John Owen, 1844), as well as the popular book-length poems A Fable for Critics: A Glance at a Few of Our Literary Progenies (Putnam, 1848) and The Vision of Sir Launfal (George Nichols, 1848). Along with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and John Greenleaf Whittier, Lowell belongs to the group of writers called the Fireside Poets, or “schoolroom” poets, known for their conservative, traditional forms; strict attention to rhyme and meter; and moral, religious, and political themes. Lowell’s works, particularly the Arthurian tale The Vision of Sir Launfal, were frequently used as school texts.

In 1853, Lowell’s wife and three of their four children fell ill and died. Two years later, he returned to Harvard to replace Longfellow as professor of modern languages and literature. He spent the following year traveling and studying in Europe, then returned to Harvard to teach for the next twenty years.

In 1857 he married Frances Dunlap and became editor of the Atlantic Monthly, a position he held for about five years. Then, for the next ten years, he served as editor of the North American Review.

Known for his politics and personal charm, Lowell was appointed to the position of United States Minister to Spain in 1877, then served as United States Minister to England from 1880 to 1885.

When Dunlap died in 1885, Lowell withdrew from public life. He continued to publish books of poetry and prose until his death on August 12, 1891.

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It’s Thursday: time to get into it with mangled metaphors, idioms, and other valiant-but-failed attempts at figurative language. The results are inadvertent yet successful attempts at levity, jocularity, and generally increased levels of dopamine.

I destroy and recombine perfectly serviceable metaphors, idioms, and other innocents on a regular basis. Because I avidly collect others’ with glee, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve heard them called malaphors and malaprops, but I strongly disagree with using malaprop as any part of a description; first, because the term is ill-applied in an ironic twist (malaprops are intentional attempts to sound grand); and second, because mal itself, meaning “bad” is simply untrue—fun with words is never bad!

I’d go for something like risiphor or ridiphor, using the Latin risus, past participle of ridere "to laugh," meaning "laughable, capable of exciting laughter, comical" + pherein "to carry, bear" (from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children"). The result? “bearing laughter offspring.” Perfect!

As a bonus, who could resist saying, “That is patently risiphorous!” or “Another great ridiphor, Annika!”

Although it bothers some who actually get these expressions right, the endless combinations that the rest of us come up with deserve a wide-girthed mirth berth.

And, even though these might technically appear to be…well…mistakes, I think they show a lack of rigidity at worst, and a creative brilliance at best. In fact, an utterance combining more than two original elements is golden in my book.

So, I say we enjoy these twisted treasures for all they’re cracked up to be. As my daughter used to say when she was but a wee sass, “Mom, that tickles my timbers!”

Happily, it’s genetic.

My best comeback to a frustratingly fumbled conversation?

“Excuse me for hearing what you said, instead of what you meant.”

Let’s hope that when it comes to food, we can do much better!

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“To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible. If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely irrelevant. What we must do, therefore, is to strive, and persevere, and never give up.”

- His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

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I Have a Dream

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Delivered August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

We usually only hear excerpts from this momentous speech, but I encourage you to listen to the audio of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering it live in 1963 before a crowd of approximately 250,000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial, as part of the historic March on Washington.

It is the best sixteen and a half minutes I have spent all week.

Here is the full text from the audio.

[Authenticity certified: Text version below transcribed directly from audio. (2)]

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. **We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.”** We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest—quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification”—one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day—this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!³

Source:

American Rhetoric. (2024, November 1). Martin Luther King I Have a Dream Speech - American Rhetoric. Americanrhetoric.com; American Rhetoric. https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

** = source audio edited to exclude the content in double asterisks in the above transcript.

¹ Amos 5:24 (rendered precisely in The American Standard Version of the Holy Bible)

² Isaiah 40:4-5 (King James Version of the Holy Bible). Quotation marks are excluded from part of this moment in the text because King’s rendering of Isaiah 40:4 does not precisely follow the KJV version from which he quotes (e.g., “hill” and “mountain” are reversed in the KJV). King’s rendering of Isaiah 40:5, however, is precisely quoted from the KJV.

³ At: negrospirituals.com/songs/free_at_last_from.htm

Audio Source: Linked directly to: archive.org/details/MLKDream

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It’s Thursday: time to get into it with mangled metaphors, idioms, and other valiant-but-failed attempts at figurative language. The results are inadvertent yet successful attempts at levity, jocularity, and generally increased levels of dopamine.

I destroy and recombine perfectly serviceable metaphors, idioms, and other innocents on a regular basis. Because I avidly collect others’ with glee, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve heard them called malaphors and malaprops, but I strongly disagree with using malaprop as any part of a description; first, because the term is ill-applied in an ironic twist (malaprops are intentional attempts to sound grand); and second, because mal itself, meaning “bad” is simply untrue—fun with words is never bad!

I’d go for something like risiphor or ridiphor, using the Latin risus, past participle of ridere "to laugh," meaning "laughable, capable of exciting laughter, comical" + pherein "to carry, bear" (from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children"). The result? “bearing laughter offspring.” Perfect!

As a bonus, who could resist saying, “That is patently risiphorous!” or “Another great ridiphor, Rex!”

Although it bothers some who actually get these expressions right, the endless combinations that the rest of us come up with deserve a wide-girthed mirth berth.

And, even though these might technically appear to be…well…mistakes, I think they show a lack of rigidity at worst, and a creative brilliance at best. In fact, an utterance combining more than two original elements is golden in my book.

So, I say we enjoy these twisted treasures for all they’re cracked up to be. As my daughter used to say when she was but a wee sass, “Mom, that tickles my timbers!”

Happily, it’s genetic.

This week’s collection will, with any luck, dog you for days.

Here is a good nonsense warm up:

• What’s the difference between dogs and marine biologists?
  Dogs wag their tails, and marine biologists tag their whales.

• Why are conjunctions a dog’s favorite part of speech?
  Because dogs love buts.

• What do you call a zoo with no animals except for one dog?
  A Shih Tzu.

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“I will never apologize for embracing joy and beauty—even when the world is falling apart—because joy and beauty are my fuel for activism.”

- Karen Walrond

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It’s Thursday: time to get into it with mangled metaphors, idioms, and other valiant-but-failed attempts at figurative language. The results are inadvertent yet successful attempts at levity, jocularity, and generally increased levels of dopamine.

I destroy and recombine perfectly serviceable metaphors, idioms, and other innocents on a regular basis. Because I avidly collect others’ with glee, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve heard them called malaphors and malaprops, but I strongly disagree with using malaprop as any part of a description; first, because the term is ill-applied in an ironic twist (malaprops are intentional attempts to sound grand); and second, because mal itself, meaning “bad” is simply untrue—fun with words is never bad!

I’d go for something like risiphor or ridiphor, using the Latin risus, past participle of ridere "to laugh," meaning "laughable, capable of exciting laughter, comical" + pherein "to carry, bear" (from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children"). The result? “bearing laughter offspring.” Perfect!

As a bonus, who could resist saying, “That is patently risiphorous!” or “Another great ridiphor, Liz!”

Although it bothers some who actually get these expressions right, the endless combinations that the rest of us come up with deserve a wide-girthed mirth berth.

And, even though these might technically appear to be…well…mistakes, I think they show a lack of rigidity at worst, and a creative brilliance at best. In fact, an utterance combining more than two original elements is golden in my book.

So, I say we enjoy these twisted treasures for all they’re cracked up to be. As my daughter used to say when she was but a wee sass, “Mom, that tickles my timbers!”

Happily, it’s genetic.

This week’s group is in need of a theme.

They ended up with a loose connection on my spreadsheet, but now I’m not so sure.

Does any theme jump out of the box to you? Any thread?

Please offer it up in the comments!

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“Beauty is the harvest of presence.”

- David Whyte

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I wish the same for you!

~Kate

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We’ve made it to the end of the week, so it’s time to lighten the mood with muddled metaphors, idioms, and other valiant-but-failed attempts at figurative language. The results are inadvertent yet successful attempts at levity, jocularity, and generally increased levels of dopamine.

I destroy and recombine perfectly serviceable metaphors, idioms, and other innocents on a regular basis. Because I avidly collect others’ with glee, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve heard them called malaphors and malaprops, but I strongly disagree with using malaprop as any part of a description; first, because the term is ill-applied in an ironic twist (malaprops are intentional attempts to sound grand); and second, because mal itself, meaning “bad” is simply untrue—fun with words is never bad!

I’d go for something like risiphor or ridiphor, using the Latin risus, past participle of ridere "to laugh," meaning "laughable, capable of exciting laughter, comical" + pherein "to carry, bear" (from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children"). The result? “bearing laughter offspring.” Perfect!

As a bonus, who could resist saying, “That is patently risiphorous!” or “Another great ridiphor, Michele!”

Although it bothers some who actually get these expressions right, the endless combinations that the rest of us come up with deserve a wide-girthed mirth berth.

And, even though these might technically appear to be…well…mistakes, I think they show a lack of rigidity at worst, and a creative brilliance at best. In fact, an utterance combining more than two original elements is golden in my book.

So, I say we enjoy these twisted treasures for all they’re cracked up to be. As my daughter used to say when she was but a wee sass, “Mom, that tickles my timbers!”

Happily, it’s genetic~

I’m a bit blue and plum tired, so I’m taking this golden opportunity to slip off to sleep by the light of a silvery blue moon, to slumber in technicolor so I’ll be in the pink tomorrow!

Thank you for stopping in to the Verbihund Café for a huemongous cup of fun. ☕

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“Do not sacrifice your wellness on the altar of someone else’s convenience."

-Amelia Nagoski

Thank you to my friend Liz for sending this quote to me. 🦃

Thank you for pausing at the Verbihund Café ~

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June 12, 2026: A day of victory for We The People.

The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for The Performing Arts has been scrubbed clean of the barnacles of blasphemy.

Thank you for celebrating at the Verbihund Café!

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It’s Thursday: time to get into it with mangled metaphors, idioms, and other valiant-but-failed attempts at figurative language. The results are inadvertent yet successful attempts at levity, jocularity, and generally increased levels of dopamine.

I destroy and recombine perfectly serviceable metaphors, idioms, and other innocents on a regular basis. Because I avidly collect others’ with glee, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve heard them called malaphors and malaprops, but I strongly disagree with using malaprop as any part of a description; first, because the term is ill-applied in an ironic twist (malaprops are intentional attempts to sound grand); and second, because mal itself, meaning “bad” is simply untrue—fun with words is never bad!

I’d go for something like risiphor or ridiphor, using the Latin risus, past participle of ridere "to laugh," meaning "laughable, capable of exciting laughter, comical" + pherein "to carry, bear" (from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children"). The result? “bearing laughter offspring.” Perfect!

As a bonus, who could resist saying, “That is patently risiphorous!” or “Another great ridiphor, Kris!”

Although it bothers some who actually get these expressions right, the endless combinations that the rest of us come up with deserve a wide-girthed mirth berth.

And, even though these might technically appear to be…well…mistakes, I think they show a lack of rigidity at worst, and a creative brilliance at best. In fact, an utterance combining more than two original elements is golden in my book.

So, I say we enjoy these twisted treasures for all they’re cracked up to be. As my daughter used to say when she was but a wee sass, “Mom, that tickles my timbers!”

Happily, it’s genetic.

Spice up your summer (or winter, for our friends Down Under…Hi Alia!) with a gram of guffaw, dash of drollery, litre of levity, jot of jest, cup of contortion, or pinch of perplexing patois!

Thank you for rolling into the Verbihund Café!

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“The fights you pick reveal whether or not you understand the battle."

-Lizz Winstead

Thank you for pausing at the Verbihund Café ~

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My go-to source for the meanings behind words is the Online Etymology Dictionary.

Many of the following have roots reaching back centuries—and in some cases, millennia.

Two hundred and fifty bucks for guessing the theme. Kidding.

Enjoy some etymological therapy with your choice of beverage today.

Yours in word obsession,

~Kate

barker (n.)

late 14c., "a dog;" late 15c., "noisy fellow;" agent noun from bark (v.). Specific sense of "loud assistant in an auction, store, or show" is from 1690s.

decrepit (adj.)

"broken down in health, weakened, especially by age," mid-15c., from Old French decrepit (15c., Modern French décrépit), from Latin decrepitus "very old, infirm" (of old men and old animals), from de "down" (see de-) + *crepitus, past participle of crepare "to crack, break" (see raven). The literal sense of the Latin word is uncertain.

dementia (n.)

"extremely low condition of mental function, mental incapacity," 1806, from Latin dementia "madness, insanity," literally "a being out of one's mind," from dement-, stem of demens "mad, raving" (see dement) + abstract noun suffix -ia.

felon (n.)

c. 1300, feloun, "one who deceives or commits treason; one who is wicked or evil; evil-doer," used of Lucifer and Herod, from Old French felon "evil-doer, scoundrel, traitor, rebel, oath-breaker, the Devil" (9c.), from Medieval Latin fellonem (nominative fello) "evil-doer," which is of uncertain origin, perhaps from Frankish *fillo, *filljo "person who whips or beats, scourger" (source of Old High German fillen "to whip"); or from Latin fel "gall, poison," on the notion of "one full of bitterness." Celtic origins also have been proposed.

Another theory (advanced by Professor R. Atkinson of Dublin) traces it to Latin fellare "to suck" (see fecund), which had an obscene secondary meaning in classical Latin (well-known to readers of Martial and Catullus), which would make a felon etymologically a "cock-sucker." OED (1989) inclines toward the "gall" explanation, but finds Atkinson's "most plausible" of the others.

Also by c. 1300 in English in a general legal sense "criminal; one who has committed a felony," however that was defined. Century Dictionary notes, "the term is not applicable after legal punishment has been completed." In Middle English it also was an adjective, "traitorous, wicked, malignant." Compare traitor for sense development.

fraud (n.)

mid-14c., "criminal deception" (mid-13c. in Anglo-Latin); from Old French fraude "deception, fraud" (13c.), from Latin fraudem (nominative fraus) "a cheating, deceit," of persons "a cheater, deceiver," of uncertain origin. Connections have been proposed to Sanskrit dhruti- "deception; error."

Meaning "a fraudulent production, something intended to deceive" is from 1650s. The meaning "impostor, deceiver, pretender; humbug" is attested from 1850. Pious fraud (1560s) is properly "deception practiced for the sake of what is deemed a good purpose;" colloquially used as "person who talks piously but is not pious at heart."

jackal (n.)

c. 1600, from French chacal, earlier jackal, from Turkish çakal, from Persian shaghal, from or cognate with Sanskrit srgala-s, literally "the howler." Figurative sense of "skulking henchman" is from the old belief that jackals stirred up game for lions.

Machiavellian (adj.)

"cunning, deceitful, habitually duplicitous, unscrupulous, destitute of political morality," 1570s, from Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Florentine statesman and author of "Il Principe," a work advising rulers to place advantage above morality.

narcissism (n.)

1905, from German Narzissismus, coined 1899 (in "Die sexuellen Perversitäten"), by German psychiatrist Paul Näcke (1851-1913), on a comparison suggested 1898 by Havelock Ellis, from Greek Narkissos, name of a beautiful youth in mythology (Ovid, "Metamorphoses," iii.370) who fell in love with his own reflection in a spring and was turned to the flower narcissus (q.v.). Narcissus himself as a figure of self-love is attested by 1767. Coleridge used the word in a letter from 1822.

“But already Krishna, enamoured of himself, had resolved to experience lust for his own self; he manifested his own Nature in the cow-herd girls and enjoyed them.” [Karapatri, "Lingopasana-rahasya," Siddhanta, II, 1941-2]

plutocracy (n.)

"government by the wealthy class; a class ruling by virtue of wealth," 1650s, from Greek ploutokratia "rule or power of the wealthy or of wealth," from ploutos "wealth" (see Pluto) + -kratia "rule" (see -cracy). Synonym plutarchy is slightly older (1640s). Pluto-democracy "plutocracy masquerading as democracy" is from 1895.

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It’s Thursday: time to get into it with mangled metaphors, idioms, and other valiant-but-failed attempts at figurative language. The results are inadvertent yet successful attempts at levity, jocularity, and generally increased levels of dopamine.

I destroy and recombine perfectly serviceable metaphors, idioms, and other innocents on a regular basis. Because I avidly collect others’ with glee, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve heard them called malaphors and malaprops, but I strongly disagree with using malaprop as any part of a description; first, because the term is ill-applied in an ironic twist (malaprops are intentional attempts to sound grand); and second, because mal itself, meaning “bad” is simply untrue—fun with words is never bad!

I’d go for something like risiphor or ridiphor, using the Latin risus, past participle of ridere "to laugh," meaning "laughable, capable of exciting laughter, comical" + pherein "to carry, bear" (from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children"). The result? “bearing laughter offspring.” Perfect!

As a bonus, who could resist saying, “That is patently risiphorous!” or “Another great ridiphor, Garfield!”

Although it bothers some who actually get these expressions right, the endless combinations that the rest of us come up with deserve a wide-girthed mirth berth.

And, even though these might technically appear to be…well…mistakes, I think they show a lack of rigidity at worst, and a creative brilliance at best. In fact, an utterance combining more than two original elements is golden in my book.

So, I say we enjoy these twisted treasures for all they’re cracked up to be. As my daughter used to say when she was but a wee sass, “Mom, that tickles my timbers!”

Happily, it’s genetic.

What is a wrong triangle? Did it not tri hard enough? Not a dad joke, just the detritus on the floor of my brain when thinking too much about why English doesn’t drive new learners completely mad.

You can’t square a circle, but you can circle the square by going around the block.

The word for a seven-sided shape isn’t a septagon but a heptagon, redolent not of geometry but of an early fan of Jazz—a hepcat.

Telegrams can be sent, but parallelograms have sides which are stationary and never shall meet (unless Einstein gets involved, or note paper is decorated with them, in which case they are stationery). So, if stationary or stationery, parallelograms stay put, but if Euclid is kicked out of the party, the woogliness of spacetime could allow them to bend and flex through teleparallel gravity, and every kid who failed that quiz just unfailed it.

If the suffix -gon means “angle or corner” as in hexagon (which sounds suspiciously like witchcraft to me), is a nonagon invisible?

All together now…

À la The Beach Boys…

Help me, Rhombus
Help help me, Rhombus

Help me, Rhombus 
Help help me, Rhombus

Help me, Rhombus yeah, 
Get it outta my head!

I’m going to let Euclid duke it out with Boethius on the frequency and mix of Greek and Latin used (spoiler alert: Greek wins).

From the future, we would paraboly have appreciated only Greek on this one, but we’ll go with the mad mathematical mashup, and just enjoy the fun of messing up our own malformed modern metaphorical manifestations.

Don’t let the hyperbola slice you beyond reason.

Thank you for edging into the Verbihund Café!

Please help spread the word to friends, students, family, colleagues, strangers, and random acquaintances. They might thank you; then again, they might throw dishes at you.

• make a one-time donation HERE 🌻

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Subscribe