Wishing You a Happy, Healthy and Humorous New Year

Wit and wisdom are virtues I admire most in people. No matter what you"™re working on, a good sense of humor is always a useful addition to your toolbox. Here are a few wise and witty gems I"™d like to share with you.

During the holidays, I had a jolly laugh while reading an email passed on to me. This list of wordplays comes from the "Style Invitational" contest run by the Washington Post. The contest originated in 1993 with a challenge to readers to rename the Washington Redskins, a name deemed culturally insensitive by some.  Douglas R. Miller submitted the winning entry: "The Baltimore Redskins. No, don"™t move the team, just let Baltimore deal with it.

Another chuckle-inducing contest by Style Invitational challenged readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and then supply a new definition. I laughed more than a little reading these responses:

Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
Intaxicaton: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
Bozone : The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating.
Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid. 
Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn"™t get it.
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
Karmageddon: It"™s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it"™s like, a serious bummer. 
Decafalon : The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly. 
Beelzebug : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. 
Caterpallor: The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you"™re eating.
  
In this example, readers were asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. Here are a few winners:

Coffee: The person upon whom one coughs. 
Flabbergasted: Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained. 
Abdicate: To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Willy-nilly: Impotent. 
Negligent: Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
Gargoyle: Olive-flavored mouthwash.
Oyster: A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms. 
Circumvent: An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Merriam-Webster Online also compiled a list of user-submitted words. Here are a few of my favorites.

Cyberchondriac: One who imagines physical ailments after reading about them on the Internet
E-cqaintance: A person known to another through online communication only
Ecotistical: Having or showing an excessively high opinion of oneself because of one's conservationist ecological practices
Drizzmal: Relating to rainy weather that causes melancholy
Nonversation: Conversation that seems meaningless or without logic

How about it dear readers? Are you up to a humor challenge from the Contractress? Here"™s the idea. Let"™s take a word within a word, and use the smaller word to somehow "enhance" the definition of the larger word. It"™d be good to keep to a theme of home improvement and/or construction projects, but you don"™t have to.

I"™ll supply a first example, which you should all be familiar with, that is, if you"™ve read my book, which I hope you have! The word is "CONtractor" and it means an unscrupulous contractor (i.e., one who tries to con you). Let me know what you come up with. I"™m looking forward to reading your entries and I"™ll publish the best in an upcoming post.

As Mark Twain wrote: Humor is mankind"™s greatest blessing. Welcome 2011!