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Mark’s Neologisms #8

“Words empty as the wind are best left unsaid.”–Homer

Ah, my dear Homer, a good sentiment.  But what if those empty words are absurdly hysterical?  It will take more than a dead Greek poet to stop me.

Everything is being done with Artificial Intelligence these days, some of it profound, some of it scary, and some of it downright ridiculous.  You’d know this if  you followed my Seeking Delphi™ podcasts and blog.  AI is being used  for early disease diagnosis, protection of the power grid, and facial recognition to catch criminals and secure our cell phones.  But it’s also being used for some pretty silly things, too.  How about a sex robot that tells jokes, or a robodog that sniffs your feet and passes out if they stink?

This brings me to the latest effort in the Mark’s Neologisms series.  I didn’t invent the terms below.  An AI program devised by Colorado researcher Janelle Shane was programmed to create convincing sounding disease names.  The results were, well, both hilarious and alarming.  But here’s the thing–it only created the names.  So in the great tradition of my sicko mind, here are some of my favorites from the list, with the actual definition of the malady added by yours truly.

Sexursoma Ear–The Latin name for hickey of the ear.

Joint Pseudomalabia–Inflammation of a prosthetic joint

Ear Poop–A side effect gotten from listening to political speeches.

Teenagerna Vain Syndrome–Well, that’s obvious.

Catdullitis–An affliction that causes pet owners to prefer dogs.

Ankle Bladders–Caused by severe gout

Seal Breath–Not fatal if you  have it, but possibly fatal if the person next to you has it.

Testicle Behavior–A mythical condition never afflicting heterosexual males.

Eye Stools–A pandemic caused by televising  political debates.

Hoot Injury–A bruise or contusion obtained when bumped into by a Hooters waitress.

Vertical Hemoglobin Fever–What most residents of Colorado, Alaska, Washington DC and other locales suffer from since the legalization of pot.

Cold Glock Allergy–An aversion to being held at point blank range.

Some of the names were so ridiculous I couldn’t begin to define them.  A few of the most bizarre are listed below. See if you can come up with something for any of the following.

Mardial Denection 

Gumpetic Surpical Escesion

 Vertical Pasocapheration Syndrome 

Helritis and Flatelet’s Ear

Milk Tomosis     Black Bote Headache     Excessive Woot Sweating 

Stumm Complication     8 Poop     Herpangitis

Wamble Submoration      Osteomaroxism     

 Bacterial Fladular Syndrome              Asteophyterdimentricular Aneurism       

 If nothing else, these are sure to make The Blog of Funny Names     

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Mark’s Neologisms #7

 “Today’s kids aren’t taking up arms against their parents; they’re too busy texting them.”–Nancy Gibbs

textuate–verb

1. The highly annoying use of texting abbreviations and emoticons in other forms of written and verbal communications.   He is always textuating when he talks to me.

2. The tendency of all communication to devolve into texting

Don’t u just hate that? OMG, me 2! GMTA! I’d tell you just exactly where this burns me up, but that would be TMI.  C U later. 😛

 

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Mark’s Neologisms #6

“A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who has never owned a car.”–Carrie Snow

 sporadiclunk–noun

1. An unnerving sporadic clunk, rattle, hum, buzz or other unnatural sound that may emanate from your car at any time–except when it’s in the repair shop.

2. Any such malady in any other piece of equipment that doesn’t occur when you take it in for repair.  May also include health or dental issues that disappear as soon as you go to the doctor or dentist.

 

I can just sense you nodding your head in agreement.  If you hear a rattle when you do that, go see a neurologist and hope it doesn’t go away when you get there. (The rattle, not your head. Well, OK, your head, too.).

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Mark’s Neologisms #5

“I don’t know about you, but most of my exchanges with cashiers are not that meaningful.”–Jeff Bezos

Coupfusion–noun (koop•fu’•shun)

1. The to-do that occurs at a grocery checkout counter when a clueless customer or cashier can’t deal with expired coupons.

2. The irritation of being stuck on line behind such an occurrence

(Related  word: Scanfusion, noun,–a similar annoyance when a product’s UPC code won’t scan)

This calls to mind my late step-mother’s infatuation with restaurant coupons.  She just wouldn’t go out to eat without a coupon for some sort of discount.  I once observed that if the eatery was giving away free food, she still wouldn’t go if she didn’t have a coupon.  She didn’t disagree.

(Be sure to follow my more serious stuff at www.seekingdelphi.com)

 

 

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Mark’s Neologisms #4: Collective Nouns

‘Longshoremen walked off the docks today.  Rescue operations are continuing around the clock.”–George Carlin

A gaggle of geese…a pod of walruses….a murmuration of starlings…a pride of lions.  It seem that interest in collective nouns,  the colorful, if mostly archaic ones that define a specific group of the animal kingdom, is on a comeback.  One article I read suggested some tongue in cheek, punny new monikers for specific groups of us humanoids.   These included “an absence of waiters,” “an attitude of teenagers,” and “a brace of orthodontists.”   So of course, the light bulb in my brain, dull as it is, flashed on.  There are any number of people packs that deserve their own special sobriquet.  Here are a few suggestions.

  • A prevarication of politicians–pretty obvious
  • A Trump of narcissists–also obvious
  • A Cruz of theocrats–sadly obvious
  • A neuter of veterinarians–considering I’ve been living with one for 40 years, it’s a miracle I’m still intact.
  • An enhancement of athletes–but this works only for those that don’t live with veterinarians
  • A babble of talk show hosts–and it certainly seems there are a babble of them.
  • An angst of existentialists–I resemble that
  • A Xerox® of Copycats–Note the ®, no I.P. issues, please.
  • A largesse of lawyers–NOT!! (just wanted to see if you were paying attention)
  • A regurgitation of acid reflux sufferers–Ewwww!
  • A rash of dermatologists–It is, after all, allergy season
  • A drowning of longshoremen–You should have seen that one coming.

Any suggestions for more?  Join the vituperation of posters in the comments below.

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Mark’s Neologisms #3

“I would stare at a map of Delaware for hours.”–Ken Jennings

“Men read maps better than women because only men understand the concept of one inch equaling 100 miles.”–Roseanne Barr

directile dysfunction**–noun

1. The inability to read a map, or follow simple directions, generally caused by over-dependence on GPS monitors.

2. A wrong turn or disorientation caused by dysfunctional GPS software.

www.cartoonstock.com used with permission

http://www.cartoonstock.com used with permission

Away back in the 20th century, my wife referred to the malady described in the first definition above as geographical dyslexia. She suffers from it.   I actually use her as a sort of reverse GPS–the surer she is we are going the right way, the surer I am we are lost.  Now all we need is a neologism for whatever ails Ken Jennings.  Any suggestions?

**OK, I admit it. After thinking this one up, I Googled it and discovered it already exists in the urban dictionary, but c’mon, it’s just too good not to use.

 

 

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Mark’s Neologisms #2

“Never trust a computer you can’t throw out the window.”–Steve Wozniak

computus interruptus— n. the spontaneous unwanted shutdown of a program or app on a computer, tablet or smart phone.

 

 

computus interuptus

We’ve all been there.   You’re just about done with the spread sheet, or you just found the eatery you want on Yelp, or you are on the verge of a record score on some dumb game.  And then you click or tap or swipe and the program or app shuts down.  Poof.  It’s gone.  Dear Mr. Hawking, please tell us which black hole it fell into and how do we get it back?  Or do we do the Wozniakian thing and throw the device out the window?  Oh look, I just created another neologism.  Wozniakian.  Isn’t this fun?

 

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New Feature: Mark’s Neologisms

” I can’t wait to go home and wash all those socks.”–Julianne Moore

Let’s face it:  daily life in the new millennium is full of any number of experiences that, well, there is just no word or words to describe.    Enter Mr. World’s Most Cluttered Mind to come to the rescue.  Herein lies the ultimate descriptionary for everything you wanted to curse out but had no easy descriptive way to do so.  We’ll start, though, with a low tech dilemma, rooted in the 20th century.

Dysoxia–n.  The anxiety caused by inability to match socks when they come out of the wash.

Somebody is not following directions.

Somebody is not following directions.  (Cartoon attribution unknown)

We’ve all experienced it.   You get to the end of folding a basket of clean clothes, and there they are:  two socks that don’t match.  Even worse, maybe there is an odd number of socks left with no matches.  Three. Five. (1083)+1.**    There are any number of theories to explain this phenomenon.   The socks are alien beings, and the missing one has reported back to its home planet.  Socks are the larval form of wire hangers.  A more scientific approach is my theory of frequent wash color drift:  as socks get washed over and over, the color of each sock fades at different rates over time.   This causes subtle mismatches which, when compounded by folding several pairs,  may leave you with two socks at the end that are far apart in hue.   How does this explain being left with an odd sock at the end?  My guess is somewhere one sock disintegrated and its remains will be found in the lint drawer.

Please feel free to share your theories, and to suggest subjects for future editions of Mark’s Neologisms.  Oh, and my advice to Ms. Moore?  You’re a rich movie star.  Don’t ever wash socks,  you can afford to wear them once and throw them away.

** In case you were wondering how many socks (1083)+1 is–it is probably enough to fill the entire visible universe.  And none of them would match.

 

 

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