Derf 'til You Puke

I was reading something the other day – I don’t remember what, exactly, maybe an obituary writing manual – and I came across the word “underfed”. It looked strange to me, as if it should be pronounced “un-derft” instead of “un-der-fed”. I thought, “un-derfed” should be its own word, as in undoing an act of derfing. For all I know, it is an official word. So I looked it up in the dictionary. To my surprise, underfed was in there! Its definition is to have fed insufficiently. This leads me to believe that, in turn, “to derf” is to feed sufficiently. I plan to derf myself on a nice steak dinner tonight to celebrate my new knowledge.

A Ginormous Plea for Xe

Throughout history parents have faced countless obstacles when attempting to raise their children. From the time cavepeople needed to protect their children from disease festering mammoth poop (“Don’t play in the mammoth poop!”), to ancient Rome when a child’s bane was marauding barbarians with hot pokers (not to mention memorizing all the declensions of Latin nouns and conjugations of Latin verbs), through the Dark Ages when parents were challenged by general ignorance, wishing they had advanced technology such as mammoth poop, to American colonial times when the choice to coerce radical children to be true to the throne was a life and death decision, to modern day intangible atrocities like media driven feaux-role models such as Lindsay Lohan and George W. Bush, we parents have had to conquer a lot of adversity to ensure the socially acceptable development of our spawns.

Allow me to describe one of my typical days of protective parenting. I wake up and take inventory of all of my children to make sure none have run off or have been abducted. Then I examine the Sponge Bob cartoon to make sure his nose does not resemble a penis too much. Since I have the TV on, I flip over to Oprah to make sure her guest is not some doctor chattering on and on about vaginas. During my trip between channels I am bombarded with cash thirsty advertisers attempting to suckle at the teats of my children’s ignorance, enticing their smoldering impulses and wants. I can’t believe I am talking about my children’s figurative teats. When I accidentally land on the E! Channel’s Top Ten show about Britney Spears’ favorite alcohol and pharmaceutical combinations, I throw a brick through the television set.

Next, I have an appointment with our town drug dealer. He has agreed to leave my kids alone until they turn eighteen if I agree to buy a quarter ounce of pot from him each week. I do this because I’m willing to sacrifice myself to be a good parent. On the way home, I sand blast gang symbols off our police station and stop by the public water works to make sure there are no fecal remnants or lead in the water supply. When I arrive back home, the kids are awake, each eating a bowl of sugar disguised as a cross-marketed movie protagonist, so I force feed them each a handful of Grape Nuts and make them stare, Clockwork Orange style, at a poster of Euell Gibbons for an hour. I know this is backward to the desired affect of A Clockwork Orange, but it’s fun putting those clamps on their eyelids, and what the hell else am I supposed to do with my Euell Gibbons poster?

After breakfast, the son decides to play video games while the daughter breaks out her army of Barbie dolls. After thirty seconds of watching my son command his animated rat-like creature to decapitate helpless animated Globulolians with a serrated petrified fish head, I take a pair of scissors and sever the power line to the video game console to save him from further depictions of senseless violence. When I regain consciousness from the electric shock blackout, I notice a large line of naked Barbies sitting on the couch. The daughter tells me they are waiting in line at Customs for their full body cavity search on their way to Canada for some frolicking. Time to spray paint some clothes on Barbie and put them in the crawl space.

This is all getting too much. I cannot continue to relive another day like this, especially since I have to do it again tomorrow. I need to stop recounting my day now. But I will tell you that our lunchtime conversation included subjects such as obtaining tattoos, you can’t get cancer if you soak the cigarettes in turpentine first, analingus is not really sex, can I go over to Mary’s house to look at her dad’s gun collection, entering contests on Internet pop-up adds are easy to win, skateboarding off the roof, murder is just another way to get ahead in the world, mustard stains are icky, and Billy says if you love your dog you can’t get arrested for bestiality with it. After putting up with all of this, and the activities that rounded out the day after lunch, which I do not have the strength to talk about, you would think the last obstacle of parental hindrance I would have to face would be a reference book company.

That’s right, Merriam-Webster has undermined my parental integrity. I’m not afraid to say it. I don’t care what kind of word henchmen they may have on staff to patrol the speaking public. Many of you have seen that they have recently posted the newest words to gain acceptance into their pompous lexicon. Even though I used the term “pompous lexicon” I claim to remain not bitter. One of those words is “ginormous”, which, technically, is a depound word, albeit, not a very inventive one, combining the words “gigantic” and “enormous”, meaning gigantic or enormous.

Let me cut to the parental usurping chase. Over the past year I have been admonishing my son for using that word. Still he continued to use it. I tried to explain to him that it was merely a fad of illiteracy, appealing to only those who were weak minded enough to resort to such verbal crutches, relieving themselves from any responsibility to linguistic propriety. To which he replied, “Huh? People are relieving themselves? Like pissing? What?” Eventually my cajoling rendered him apologetic every time he used the word in front of me. “Sorry, Dad.” From his fluency with the word, I could tell he was wielding it freely while cavorting with his friends and the general public. At least his apologies to me revealed he was aware that he was saying it and that it was wrong, on some level, to use it. That is, until Merriam-Websterdecided to validate the wordship of ginormous against my better judgement.

The son no longer apologizes to me when he uses the word because it is in the dictionary. What’s worse is the frequency of his use of ginormous has increased, and not always in grammatically correct ways. “Dad, I’m going to ginormous mow the lawn ginormous, but I need gas ginormous money for the mower. Ginormous, ginormous. Oh, and one more thing – ginormous.” What’s worst of all is, because of Merriam-Webster’s need to be hip to sell more dictionaries to illiterate and incorrigible teenagers, my son no longer believes any of my parental guidance. Sure, drinking and driving is dangerous. Sure, studying will help my grades. Sure, if I don’t wear a rubber I’ll end up ruining my life by disease or by parenthood, or both. Sure, Jerry Springer isn’t a news program. You were wrong about ginormous, how do I know you aren’t wrong about those things? How do I know they won’t make heroin legal someday, either?

So, I’ve given up parenting the son. I hope he knows how to use a mop. What really gets me is that ginormous is now officially a word, but useful words like xe and depound go unnoticed, and are probably not even considered for acceptance by the snoots at Merriam-Webster. Especially, xe. That word has the power to change our entire language for the better. No longer will we have to awkwardly tap dance around gender specific pronouns in attempt to be non-offensive or non-committal. Xe can free society from the manacles of conformed expression. What we need is to get the word out (both literally and literally) so that more people use xe. Use of the word on this blog and message board is not enough (apparently - but you would think it would be enough based on the scholarly exposure we provide). “Important” people need to start using it in print. We need a marketing campaign to brainwash young children to use it so that the number-crunchers at Merriam-Webster can determine, if they include xe, they will sell more copies of their rad expression manual to unsuspecting young gibberish speakers. The acceptance of xe requires a grass roots campaign the likes of which has not been seen since Temptation Eyes. WHO’S WITH ME?!?!?!?!?!

(Note: if you are unfamiliar with the words xe and depound, please click here and here.)

Whishouthimuhoay

Don Imus made some big news this week. Apparently, he’s not dead. That was news to me. I haven’t listened to him in years. The only reason I ever did listen to him was because I had been held captive in strange cities from time to time by my employer, and I was unfamiliar with the local radio stations. Imus was usually all I could find other than country stations or bible talk. Back then I found him to be self-centered, close-minded and boorish. From the looks of things, he hasn’t changed.

Most of you know what he did this week. If you don’t know, then I applaud you for ignoring this kind of crap better than I do. For those of you who are better crap-ignorers than I am, he referred to the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed ho’s”. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. I don’t know in what context he presented this allegation or what his intent was. My research staff doesn’t like that I don’t pay them, so they won’t tell me anything. I have heard, however, some of the outcry resulting from the comment. Seems old Don has been slapped with a racist/sexist sticker. I don’t know if that is a fair claim or not, but I do know that he was wrong to make that comment. Not wrong in a politically correct sense. He was wrong in a factual sense.

The women on that team are not nappy-headed ho’s, from what I can tell. I saw parts of their press conference in reaction to the Imus comment. I didn’t see any nappy heads (clue me in on this, are we not supposed to have nappy heads, is that a bad thing? What’s the rule on that?), and they don’t seem like any of the ho’s I know. (Before I make this next comment, I must disclaim that it is only based on the ho’s I know and is not meant to be a generalization of all ho’s.) The ho’s I know are usually self-centered, close-minded and boorish. And, their brains don’t work so good. And, they smell weird. And, they steal my drugs. Based on their behavior at the press conference, the Rutgers players seemed like fine young women, with clear thoughts and a good perspective on the issue they were slathered with. Even though my television is not equipped with smellovision, none of these women looked like they smelled weird. And, I’ve never known any of them to steal my drugs. The only conclusion I can reach is that they are, indeed, not ho’s. Imus is wrong. Let me be the first to declare it!

Since Imus is wrong with his assessment of the character of the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team, how do we know he isn’t wrong with the rest of the swill he has been squirting through our radios and television sets? We don’t know, so all we can do is assume that he is wrong with at least 39% of his assertions (no need to do the math, I have a solar powered abacus). By my calculations, this gives him a 61% average which is either a D or an F, depending upon which grading scale you prefer. So why do so many people listen to him on the radio? And why, for the love of one life to live, would anybody watch him on television? And why does he wear that ghoul mask, and why does he need sycophants surrounding him licking all of his thoughts’ asses? These aren’t rhetorical questions. I would appreciate it if somebody could give me the answers. Until then, I can only assume that those listeners and viewers are dumb asses.

Speaking of dumb asses, I did a little research (on my own, see above) into the etymology of the name Imus. As it turns out, “imus” is a little known type of word called a “depound word”. A depound word is the opposite of a compound word. For you loyal Imus listeners, a compound word is a larger word formed by two smaller words joined together, such as “theme” (the + me) (or something like that, it’s been a while since I had second grade). A depound word is made up of at least two larger words that are destructed to form a smaller, more user friendly word. “Imus” is the depound word for “I am a dumb ass”. (This whole ordeal is making much more sense now, isn’t it?). Do not confuse a depound word with an acronym. An acronym is composed of the first initial of each root word. These are very popular with the text messaging community. That is, until they learn about depounds. As you will see in a mere moment, depounds are much more fun. Depounds are formed from various parts of the root words, not necessarily limited to the first initial of each. For example, shelouposhole is the depound for “Shut the hell up you piece of shit asshole”. And, an old favorite, masanakysul is the depound for “May satan take your soul.” And who could forget autmissiorest for “Automatic Submission of Requests”. Feel free to make up your own and invent your very own secret decoder rings to help you communicate with each other at parties.

Don I Am A Dumb Ass has begun to reap his rewards for his blatant moronic comment. Not only did his radio station suspend him for two weeks, his television show on MSNBC, The Planet of the Ropers, has been canceled. He will continue to suffer more as the world, enlightened by the exposure of this event, learns what he truly is – an old, bitter man who time has swept to the curb because he has let himself be swept aside by not understanding the doctrine of cool. Eventually, we will all ask ourselves “Who gives a shit about what this Imus has to say” or depoundly, Whishouthimuhoay?

Bloated Portrayal of Surrender

When I committed the aberration, I thought nothing of it. Although I sensed it was immoral, from some perspectives, I felt it fair as I was only affecting myself. The transparency of my window did not give mandatory license to observe. Eventually, the hearsay disseminated, and, of course, I abnegated it entirely. Not one person believed me. The authorities were persistent with their efforts to ensure I pay for what I had done. After an exhausting fight on my behalf, I finally acquiesced.

They subjected me to some anomalous punishment involving a rake, a few straws and some eraser shavings. Hoping that they would force me to beseech, the tormentors increased the severity of the flogging at a constant rate. I did not fall prey to their cajoling. When it was evident their will was inferior to mine, they suspended their castigation.

I formulated and presented a cogent argument for my release, assuring to them that I was not a contagion to society. I convinced them that I would not defile their community. Subsequently, I was allowed to return home where I immediately penned a letter of diatribe to my congressman expressing to him my dismay to the way I was processed. I explained the impact of my dissoluteness was felt only by me. Surely, he could respect my right to individualism within my own home.

After I had mailed the letter, I sat and pondered. Had this experience enervated me? No! In reality, it had made me much stronger. So strong, in my mind, I exonerated my persecutors. Little did they know their admonishment had only reinforced my fecund nature. I looked for novel and arresting ways to secure my role as a heretic.

The actual course of my commitment to nonconformity was indeterminate. However, I did infuse a wide variety of over-the-counter drugs into my diet. The interfusion of these pharmaceuticals and my usual libations did nothing more than grieve my depths, but I continued ingesting the combination nonetheless. I sat for weeks enduring my internal jeremiads while contemplating strategies to express my raison d’etre.

Fatefully, I received a phone call from the office of my congressman. The emissary informed me that the call was in response to my written correspondence to his reverence. I proclaimed my joy to have actually received a response from a government proxy. Luckily, before I extended too many laudations, the other man denounced my actions and chided my licentious existence. My ligneous expression revealed the shock I had felt (although he could not see me because we were conversing by phone). I began to offer my defense, but futility repressed me. The correspondent was not in the least malleable. His opinion of me remained the same. He expanded his criticism of me by informing me that what I had done was no mere peccadillo. Overcome by indifference, I hung up the phone.

Had the government abandoned me and those like me (if any)? Had I lost one of the most pragmatic securities of living in an organized, free state? Was I a man without a country, like Kurt Vonnegut? Confidence in myself waned, but not for long. I came to the conclusion that my realm was my own being and nothing more. I was not a protraction of any other entity, and no opposition could compel me to recant. Not caring if my actions were salubrious, I bought a firearm and headed into the city.

After a fortnight of roaming the streets searching for a subject upon which to relinquish my aggression, I realized I had neglected to obtain appropriate ammunition for my pistol. I explored the ground for discarded bullets, but I found a scanty supply (none, actually). I was determined not to be subsumed into the existing structure of order. Since no traveling munitions merchant came to my succor, I decided to return to my fortress to regroup.

Within the ramparts of my sanctuary, I questioned the sanity of my mission and my being. Unsuccessfully probing the inner nooks of my mind for an amelioration, I screamed the wanting words of a supplicant and received no answer. My turbid state of mind forced me to only one recourse. Though I did not desire this outcome, the rigid nature of circumstances had destroyed my usual unflappable demeanor. I accepted it. All aspirations for veneration had expired inside of me. I chose to vilify myself. Slowly, apprehensively, I closed the drapes and returned to my trousers.

Word of the Moment 1

I used to draw a comic called Comicabulary. Its purpose was to improve the quality of the world’s (and my own) English vocabulary by providing the definition of a word with an accompanying comic using that word to provide contextual reinforcement. Initially, I did not plan to draw a comic panel. My original intention was to present a silly paragraph or two using the word in outlandish contexts in order to develop a unique and memorable impression of the word. My hope was to create an environment that would promote the memory of the meaning of each word. Writing paragraphs proved to be too difficult for me, so I decided to draw instead. Hence, Comicabulary.

I created a set of these comics and sent them to a friend of a friend who happened to work at a comic syndication company. She told me that the comics were good and delightful, but their company wasn’t looking to promote educational tools and it was not the right kind of comic for them at that time. What she really meant was they sucked. Here’s proof:

I was never very happy with them, since they didn’t have enough of a humorous edge for my tastes. However, I hoped they might appeal to the Reader’s Digest crowd. So, why didn’t I send them to Reader’s Digest? Because, I gave up, of course. I’m not very tenacious – more Teflonacious. Ultimately, I was too enraptured with other aspects of life, like watching TV and thinking about keeping the world safe from alien invasion. Who knows, maybe someday I will exhume the comic. In the meantime, I’m going to give my original idea a go, manifested in a recurring Leper Pop feature: Word of the Moment. I don’t want to call it Word of the Day because, I believe, that title is already being used, and I don’t want to get sued. Besides, there is no way in hell I would be able to do this every day. Wisdom comes from knowing your limitations, or, at least, relying on them.

So, stand back, here it goes.

quoin (kwoin) noun – an exterior angle of a wall or other piece of masonry; cornerstone; keystone. verb – to secure or raise with a quoin.

Nobody cares about the quoins in the world. More often than not, we try to avoid running into the quoins while barreling around corners. Everybody loves barreling around corners. Only the sadistic love to barrel into quoins.

Sure, some quoins are bolstered with thicker bricks than the rest of the wall. Even decorative stone, sometimes. But the intentions of those efforts do not have the quoins’ best interests in mind. Those intentions nourish the structural fortitude of the buildings for which the quoins support. These quoin constructors are more interested in ensuring their buildings do not fall down than they are in praising the quoins.

Let us examine the quoin’s counterpart and archrival – the inside corner. The inside corner lives a nurtured life. The inside corner is basted with attention. The inside corner’s greatest offense is a little dusty build-up that can be wooshed easily away by The Swifter. The inside corners in rooms are always considered when determining the décor.

Woman: Honey, what are we going to put in that corner of the room?
Man: A beer keg refrigerator.
Woman: Don’t be silly. I think I’ll pile my stuffed animals there.
Man: Where do you want the TV?
Woman: Oh, put it in that corner over there, and make sure you don’t hit the exterior angle of the wall of the closet when you move the TV.
Man: You mean the quoin?
Woman: What’s a quoin?
Man: How the hell should I know? Can I put the TV down now?
Woman: Not until I decide what to put in the rest of the corners of the room.
Man: I wish we didn’t decide to buy a house with an octagonal family room.

I’m as guilty as anybody in this matter. In the corners of my family room are my amp, a file cabinet of art/craft supplies, a book case, two pool cues, a door way and a pile of leaves. And of the quoins? Nothing, except my son’s guitar is leaning against one of them, and I will have to beat his ass for that. That’s all I need is for his grandma to come barreling her way from the kitchen and smash the hell out of the guitar with her Gene Simmons commemorative boots we bought her for Christmas last year.

In theory, the quoins are all supposed to be left free of debris so we do not trip on anything when barreling our way through the house. It’s a proven fact that humans love to barrel. We were bred to barrel. The social evolutionary consequences of this aspect of human development has led to unadorned quoins worldwide, except for some third world cultures where barreling around quoins is against their religion.

Barreling is a modern sociological human trait. It is one we share with dogs. Dogs love to barrel around quoins, too. They don’t care what is in their way, especially when there is someone at the door. In fact, they prefer to knock things over when barreling. This is why they wag their tails maniacally, so they can destroy our stuff even if they miss it with their barreling. They don’t care. It’s not like they paid for the stuff or will have to clean up the mess. It seems as if they don’t care about anything except for eating, getting pet and going outside. And barreling. And seeing if somebody is here. Can somebody remind me why we let dogs live with us? They certainly don’t care about quoins. And, neither do we. Maybe that’s the bond that keeps us together. Quoins. Quoins will keep us together. Think of my dog whenever, Some sweet standing quoin comes along while we barrel along, Don’t go around, You gotta be strong, Don’t Stop, ‘cause the quoin really loves you, Stop, the quoin is thinking of you, Look in my heart and let quoins keep us together. Whatever.

I think it’s time to change our view of the quoin. However, before we start enhancing our quoins with plants, and totem poles, and piles of candy that we are supposed to consider as art, and lawn furniture, and urns of ashed loved ones, and giant cardboard cut-outs of Charles Barkley, we will need to become more agile barrelers in order to avoid the items with which we celebrate our quoins. We need to start teaching precision barreling techniques in our schools, write a magazine called Better Barreling and create a home improvement show on TLC called This Old Barreler.

Above all that, we should get to know our quoins. I propose an annual world-wide Hug A Quoin Day. It will be held on the first Thursday of every August, and will require one day of post-hugging recuperation, so we can all enjoy a 4 day weekend in the summer (it is true - I don't care about people in the Southern Hemisphere), when we can actually enjoy ourselves outside, unlike the silly Thanksgiving “holiday” they throw at us in November when it’s usually crummy outside and we are forced to sit inside and eat and get drunk. I guess that’s not so bad, either, but the quoins deserve summer hugs so they can get a sense of our sweat and feel a little bit human, if only for a moment. I implore you all to write a letter to your most sensitive and malleable public official and demand that the quoins have a voice in our government in the form of a summer four day weekend, so we can get drunk outside and maybe even have sex in the woods. The quoins want us to cherish them in this manner. Just be careful to look out for barreling grandmas when you are hugging your quoin or when you having sex in the woods.