Onomatopia

Onomatopia: noun. A fictional world in which everyone communicates via onomatopoeias, words whose sounds resemble the objects they describe, such as "tick tock" or "roar." Several essays and treatises (the difference between which no one really knows or cares about and seldom bothers to find out before forgetting it again) have been written on Onomatopias, but the most famous example of an Onomatopia comes from the Eighteenth century novelistic ripoff of Thomas More's Utopia, imaginatively called Onomatopia. Rather imaginatively, the author envisions a society whose classes are drifting apart because of the language barriers constructed between them, owing to the different sets of vocabularies each of them develops. Even words for the same things become different, which is perhaps best documented by the words for sex. While the lower classes develop the word "squeaky-squeaky" because of their worn down beds, the middle class develops the word "hubba-hubba" in an effort to seem more like the pretentious higher classes. Meanwhile, the higher classes themselves do not develop any word for sex because it is deemed improper, and they slowly die out.

Empurple

Empurple: verb. While the conventional definition for the word empurple is "to become purple," a new meaning arose with an error in a 1996 translation of the Bolivian novel Cincuenta tonos de morado by a translator who has since changed his name and fled to Australia. Attempting to translate the wordplay of the Spanish original, in which the main character is in love (está enamorado) with a tub of perfectly purple (morado) blueberry ice-cream, the translator - admitting years later that the decision came in a moment of very bad judgement - decided to translate the word enamorado as empurple, not meaning "to become purple" but "to fall in love." Thus arose a mistake killing the translator's career, but meanwhile enriching the English dictionary, which is what this blog is all about. Yes, we really are a flock of scavenging, immoral vultures.

Reporpoise

Reporpoise: noun. The word reporpoise is often erroneously used by environmental activists such as Greenpeace and Cabbages "R" Us to mean "to return porpoises to their natural habitat" or for "a natural habitat to regain its porpoise population." However, to reporpoise in the correct sense of the word is to change the purpose of a porpoise. It is a well known fact that the porpoise economy has recently undergone a severe recession and numerous porpoises were looking for new jobs. The word reporpoise came into being as a result of a government-run effort to qualify porpoises for jobs in the service sector from manufacturing jobs, an effort which met with remarkable success. The porpoise economy grew substantially, once again showing that neoliberalism is a horrible mistake.

Spireality

Spireality: noun. The quality of being like a spiral. The word was invented by the Physics for the American South movement, which is highly unpopular for unknown reasons, after decades of negotiations with the American Guild of Fabric Makers failed. The PAS was protesting that the word "spirality" was being hijacked by the AGFM to denote the "untwisting of yarn in fabric," but its demands for the repurposing of the word did not fall on fertile ground. As a result, the PAS wrote the Declaration of 2008, in which it coined the word spireality while denouncing flat earth theories and young earth creationism. Clearly, 2008 was an eventful year for the American South.

Trunkulent

Trunkulent: adjective. To be eager to fight, usually said of Ents, trees and bushes, and of people wielding sticks and other wooden objects. An example of the word used in a sentence is: "Losing her game of croquet, Lady Genevieve Anne Isabelle of Sandwich started becoming very trunkulent and, after several nervous displays involving beating the earth with her mallet, finally whacked her opponent, Sir John Paul Ringo George of Liverpool, straight into the ground."

Framewok

Framewok: noun. The basic concept underlying round-bottomed cooking vessels. An example of the word used in a sentence is "The manual showed me how to use the wok in specific circumstances, but I still don't understand the whole framewok."

Sikh

Sikh: verb. To look for fulfillment within the framework of Sikhism. The word comes from a popular saying paraphrased from the Guru Granth Sahib: "Sikh and you shall f-india." The past form of the word to sikh is sokhed, which is, coincidentally, the term for one soaked with Sikh knowledge.  

Poup

Poup: verb. To poop soup. Though the word poup is sometimes taken to mean "to poop something with the consistency of soup," this interpretation is inaccurate and impractical, seeing as soups come in varying degrees of viscosity, from bouillon to super creamy cheese soup. To poup is simply to poop soup. Real soup.

Apopiate

Apopiate: adjective.
1. Suitable for doing whatever a pope does. An example of this word used in a sentence is: "The cardinals decided that the most apopiate person for the job was Jozef Wojtyla."
2. Something suitable for papal use or interaction. "The French president decided that the most apopiate gift was a porcelain altar boy."

verb.
1. To devote papal funds to a cause. "The money collected from the German princes was apopiated for fighting against other German princes.
2. For a pope to take something. "Martin Luther argued that the Pope would apopiate the German lands in the same way that he apopiated a large part of Italy."
3. To take someone's pope. Contrary to popular belief, this is not what happened during the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy (also known as the Avignon Papacy).

Claroscopy

Claroscopy: noun. The word claroscopy was devised in a series of attempts to describe the faculty of seeing things before they happen. Though the word "clairvoyance" eventually came out victorious, claroscopy and similar short-lived words, most notably clarividence, continue to haunt the nightmares of people in favour of the rationalisation of the English language, most notably people in the Movement for the Rationalisation of the English Language founded by Lewis Carroll.

Prack

Prack: noun. A rack that is somehow practical, for example through high efficacy, effectiveness, or efficiency. The term originated with regard to the rack traditionally used for torture, though nowadays it is more commonly associated with things like spice racks or hay racks. It is interesting to note that the famous actor Chris Prack is not related in anyway to pracks because his name is actually Chris Pratt.

Sprooge

Sprooge: verb. We don't actually know what the word sprooge means or whether it even is a word. But we thought sprooge sounded way too cool not to be made a word, so we have created it without a definition, letting it out into the world like the beautiful monster of Dr Frankenstein it is. By the way, its past tense is sproge.

Grum

Grum: adjective. The word grum is a cross between the words glum and grim. After a board meeting of our blog editors, we agreed none of us had any idea of why there was any need for the word grum at all, seeing as there are hosts of words to describe the bad and generally awful.