A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1004

Tonsillated: To be extremely busy, as in I’m up to my tonsils.
-Alan Tuffery, Dublin, Ireland (atuffery tcd.ie)

My new phrase is: al freezco. Tired of having to eat in the cold and wind of out-of-doors venues in all weather. “ I utterly refuse to do any more dining al freezco- virus or no virus!”
-Kathy Curran (via website comments)

The letter sequence “copyleft” had been used in silliness, with no particular meaning. In 1985 I gave it a specific meaning and started serious (i.e., Ha Ha Only Serious) use of it. See here for an explanation. Copyleft fights injustice: all wrongs reversed!
-Dr Richard Stallman, Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project, Founder, Free Software Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts (rms gnu.org)

Re pharmaceutical naming... I coined a name that is a combination of “vigorous” and “Niagara” and it now appears in the Oxford English Dictionary. My first employer in the pharmaceutical naming business, David Wood/Wood Worldwide, coined the name Proz.., and that name also appears in the Oxford English Dictionary. See details.
-Arlene Teck, Creative Services Director, ixxeo.com, Rockaway, New Jersey (arlene ixxeo.com)

Early in the pandemic, all the regular social gatherings on my calendar cancelled. Gradually, organizers resuscitated the events on Zoom. And I came to think of them as Zoombies. As in: “Yeah, the Storytellers’ Guild monthly story swap was cancelled for the duration, but then, it came back as a Zoombie.”
-Charles McConnell, Portland, Oregon (bestofpdx gmail.com)

On Feb 11, 1975, I awoke in my room at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, where I was attending the third conference of the Art Libraries Society of North America. I did not get up instantly but stayed in bed for fifteen minutes or more considering the interesting day ahead. This was -- and remains -- my constant and unapologetic practice whenever possible. When I did arise and perform my morning ritual, I began to wonder why there was no English name for this not-uncommon habit.
I had been fully awake. I did not nap or snooze or doze or drowse. I was not malingering. I believe this tendency may be largely the domain of nightowls and a normal difference between individuals, not a character flaw (though there are too many who would challenge that opinion). I met two friends for breakfast, the brilliant librarian Joan Hugo and her colleague, photographer Janice Felgar, both from Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. I presented them with this conundrum, and Joan instantly supplied the perfect word: beddling.
beddle: To remain in bed awake for a short time before arising. At the time, I wrote a rather wispy story called Beddling and submitted it to The New Yorker. They wisely refrained from publishing it.
-Laurence McGilvery, La Jolla, California (arts mcgilvery.com)

A couple of weeks ago I was watching coverage on the TV news of an anti-vaccination, anti-mask demonstration. It occurred to me that, with all the scientific and empirical proof of the effectiveness of vaccination in the fight against this terrible pandemic, anyone still with the irrational mindset that vaccination is (a) unpardonably dangerous, (b) an unwarranted infringement of their rights, or (c) a sinister plot by some secret global cabal intent on controlling the world’s entire population, rather than be known by a generic term such as “gullible fool” or something similar, and probably ruder, could be classified far more succinctly as a vaccimoron.
-Hugh Parsons, Kapiti Coast, New Zealand (whiteknuckleturning outlook.com)

I like to say that I’m “fruishing” things, a verbification of the noun fruition. It takes many fewer syllables than “bringing them to fruition” and it even implies, I think, more effort in the moment.
-Alison Schoew, Chesapeake, Virginia (2schoew cox.net)

Some years back I coined the word inscend. I am a Buddhist meditation instructor and in contrasting the aims of many other forms of meditation which seek to go beyond, or transcend mundane concerns, Buddhist meditation by contrast asks that we move into and learn to inhabit our lives more fully, to inscend rather than transcend. Thus, inscendence is the goal of Buddhist meditation.
-José M. Tirado, Reykjavik, Iceland (jmt3 hi.is)

My proposed new word is trmp. It’s immediately obvious that this refers to the former US President, he who shall not be named. My word trmp was conceived through the fact that there was absolutely nothing upper class about him, so it follows that the initial letter should definitely be lowercase. And there’s no u simply because it’s always all about him.
-John White, Worcester, Massachusetts (jcw6569 charter.net)

My friend Suky Lim of Manila asserts that there is a word spiritual (of the spirit), intellectual (of the intellect), visceral (of the visceras), etc., but no word heartual, of the heart, and there should be.
-Mike Boddington, Vientiane, Laos (mbodd laotel.la)

Gullibubba, a willfully ignorant person who will believe anything, that is, anything they WANT to believe, despite solid evidence to the contrary.
-Bobbi Jones Sabine (via website comments)

My word is joyvy. I’ve always been at a loss for a word when a friend has something wonderful happen to him/her (a new car or house, an upcoming trip, a promotion, etc.) and I’m completely happy for that person, but a tad wistful that nothing that good has happened to me. The words jealous or envy don’t cut it for me as their nuance is one of unhappiness or distaste toward the fortunate person when in fact I’m happy for the person. So I feel joyvy toward them.
-Susan Stites, Madison, Wisconsin (alligat aol.com)

Underdent: The dented impressions seen on the skin around the waist caused by underwear elastic pressure. This word was coined by one of my Long Island eighth-grade students, David DeTurris, a few years ago when we were doing a lesson on invented words.
-Ross Burkhardt, Las Cruces, New Mexico (ross1962 me.com)

I came up with the word fandle, which is what an overexcited fan does metaphorically to their idol when they meet them, by gushing or going all tongue-tied. It happened to me when I met an author I love.
-Ameya Nagarajan, Delhi, India (ameya.nagarajan gmail.com)

My AP Language students all read Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, which argues for a leaner, cleaner writing style. When a student waxed verbose in a draft of a paper, I could just write “Strunk this” in the margin, and it was clear to the student that he had to eliminate the verbiage. Eventually, “Strunking” became a good habit.
-Eileen Toomey Mattingly, Bourne, Massachusetts (eileenmattingly hotmail.com)

Subconscionable: Lower than unconscionable. “The President’s actions were subconscionable!”
-P. Larry Nelson, Champaign, Illinois (lnelson illinois.edu)

A “cat list” is like a bucket list, except that instead of being a list of all those things that you want to do before you die, it is a list of all the times you easily could have died but didn’t (almost fell off a cliff, nearly struck by lightning...). A play on the belief that cats have nine (or seven, depending upon the country you are in) lives, it’s a potent conversation starter!
-Guy Bradley, Icking, Germany (guyb me.com)

Distingréy, a distinguished older person (distingue + grey)
-Jim Webster, Berkeley, California (jsibleywebster mindspring.com)

My new word is accumularium. It means a place where you keep your stuff; particularly a place where you can observe the stuff without its having any other practical use.
-Mark Swantkowski, Mehoopany, Pennsylvania (signet02 yahoo.com)

My coined word is knowpinion, which is an assertion, set forth as fact, but which is actually an opinion. While created to describe my then-toddler’s confident assertions, over the past decade I’ve identified much broader applications.
-Beckie Schatschneider, Narberth, Pennsylvania (rschatsc gmail.com)

Here in northern New Mexico we speak several languages, including Spanglish. Words, combinations of words, or even combinations of words from one language with syntax from the other (Spanish and English, of course). I have coined a Spanglish word: Hablah-blah-blar, a combination of hablar (to speak, in Spanish) & blah-blah-blah (to make meaningless or inconsequential sounds that resemble speech but unlike actual speech have no meaning beyond the speaker’s ability to dominate the conversation.)
-J. Michael Combs, New Mexico (combsjmichael gmail.com)

To postpend, a portmanteau of postpone and suspend. It means “to postpone indefinitely, but we don’t really want to admit that to ourselves”. I coined it while working in an organisation with a terrible habit of postponing difficult discussions with no intention of ever dealing with them.
-Oscar Franklin (Oscar.Franklin actionaid.org)

Pence: To bootlick or to kiss-ass. Usage: He was a mere flunky who penced his boss, yet gained no favors.
-Jerry Bradley, Springfield, Virginia (fxb3 verizon.net)

Over 40 years ago, as an undergrad at UCLA, I majored in Linguistics and Psychology. One professor asked us to invent a word. I coined scripter for “something that you use to write with”. Today, I googled the word. Evidently it is used to mean “someone who writes a script”. Hmph. I think my definition is better. As an elementary school teacher, of course I had on my classroom bookshelf the classic kids’ novel Frindle. (This tells the story of a boy who decides to call any pen a frindle. The word eventually gains widespread usage and even appears in an official dictionary!) Honestly, with all due respect to the author, I think scripter is better.
-Robin Winston, Culver City, California (robindance earthlink.net)

Nomogenic, patterned after iatrogenic (“relating to illness caused by medical examination or treatment”), used in connection with laws creating victimless crimes. I heard this term once at the onset of the “war on drugs” but, unfortunately, it never caught on.
-Steve Robinson, Glendale, California (spr lawrobinson.com)

My late husband, Dr. James R. Jones, coined this for the (usually green) light that shines up at the bottom of an escalator: aurora escalatis.
-Priscilla Jones, Naples, Florida (sfwrds yahoo.com)

Fibbleweeble: The sensation of upwards movement experienced, when staring upwards into falling snow, etc.
-Dr. John Michael Styers, Owatonna, Minnesota (yakuzalord69 gmail.com)

Pringleize: To force conformity and stick humans in a tube for easier shipping. See details.
-Bob Holman, New York, New York (bobholmanpoet gmail.com)

During the first dot-com bust, I decided that the proper term for an online business that had gone bankrupt was efunct, or e-funct, depending on which convention you choose.
-Andrea King, Santa Monica and Walnut Creek, California (akingconsults gmail.com)

One of the earlier, and quite successful campaigns to coin and define a new word: santorum.
-Raleigh Romine, Alexandria, Virginia (raleighr me.com)