Getting a handle on economic disaster

This week, StatsCan jobless figures and the parliamentary budget officer's new economic report suggest that we're even more totally screwed, despite the prime minister's consistently cheery "don't worry be happy" mantra. Imagine that.

So, previous stellar efforts of our own Audrey and Fourth Dwarf notwithstanding, obviously it is time again for the ESIs to step into the economy. Yuck! It's all over my paws now, and it smells, like, ummm, bad! I digress.

At the ESI Institute for Tax-Deductible Thinktankage, we are all over putting a face on the true extent of this economic mess, with our specialty, the all-important nomenclature. For now, we'll leave the actual fixing-up stuff to trained economists like the PM. Who unfortunately has never actually worked as an economist. Oops.

Now where was I? Oh, right: Economy. Doom. Disaster. Etymology.* Terminology. Coinage.

"Ecopalypse" had the nicest ring, but a quick paw-over of Google shows those freakin' pesky environmentalists have already tagged it. Bastards. And why is it that their cosmic antimatter, all those smart develop-at-any-cost business types, still haven't noticed that economy and ecology look, even to a casual observer, to be so closely related? Not a coincidence, surely. I digress again.

"Econalypse" made our fallback list, but it turns out some lousy blogger beat us to it by months. Bastard. Besides, it sounds too much like "Econo-Lips". Which in turn sounds too much like the kind of big, red wax lips that Stephen Harper would buy at a dollar store, and wear to lighten up those hinterland news conferences where he keeps insisting that the country's economic fundamentals are great. That kidder.

Then, in homage to the epic Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme that finally overbalanced the global economy's already-sideways tilt, we thought "Eponzilypse". We were really graspin' at straws on that one...

Crap! We need ideas. What to do, what to do? I know! How 'bout a contest...?

* Memo to Traci, perky but inexperienced new summer intern in the ESI graphics department: Kid, etymology is about words. Entomology is about bugs. Take a note for next time, please...

On the Web: Dipthong and Homeslice

I'm sure you've all seen that Language Log is promoting the use of the word "dipthong" as an insult. Chris Pott's writes:

My wife's (very scholarly) Forbes Library book club is reading Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn this month. The book seems to be full of wonderfully inventive swearing. Last night, my wife read this one aloud to me (p. 170):

If I wanted a gun, I'd get a gun, you diphthong.

Diphthong works remarkably well as a pejorative. Curious about whether this was Lethem's innovation, I searched the Net for "you diphthong", figuring that the initial pronoun would cut down on merely phonological discussions. Precision was still poor — a mixture of phonological discussions of you and fortuitous juxtapositions of these two words by programs for generating random text, but the search did turn up a few cases of genuine expressivity, and I discovered that the Urban Dictionary has an entry:

1. diphthong: A vowel combination consisting of a weak vowel and a strong one. It is more commonly used as an insult, seeing as it is a legitimately funny word.
There is a diphthong in "loud."
YOU'RE A DIPHTHONG.

[Source]

You'll be happy to know that I've gone to the Urban Dictionary and thumbs-upped the above definition. And you'll also be happy to know that other uses of dipthong as an insult show up on Google when you put an asterisk between "you" and "dipthong", for example:

• "Here you are at last, are you, you blankety-blank mick dipthong!" he yelled blood-thirstily. "Where you been? You want to make a nervous wreck outa me?
  
• I’ll go to federal prison before I play this charade with you, you duplicitous, grandstanding dipthong.

I am happy that highly-regarded Language Log (Technorati Authority: 872) is using the Urban Dictionary to promote words just like I am.

Although I am sad to see that you dipthongs (not you, Zoom) have not been voting for my definition of homeslice. Maybe if one or two of you would come through, I'd be back at number 1.

Familiar Bedfellows

With all this talk of strange bedfellows this past week, I've been reminded of the problem some of you have with not knowing what to call the person that you live with and to whom you are not legally married.

I'm told "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" aren't suitable because they sound juvenile and don't reveal there is a shared domicile and commitment to the future.

"Partner" is no good because people assume you are gay if you are straight or they think you are talking about someone who you're in business with.

By turning to the web, I have found a plethora of words and phrases you can use instead of "spouse equivalent", "significant other" or "person of the opposite sex sharing living quarters". First, here are some I found checking various reference sources:

• My conjugal relation [As opposed to your brother who would be your fraternal relation]
• My conjugate [Mathematical: the person who rationalizes the denominators of your fractions, is the root of your polynomial function, and who can be joined to you by a 1-parameter family of geodesics.]
• Mon conjoint; ma conjointe [Means legally married in French, but if spoken with a heavy Franco-Ontarien accent won't give anyone the impression there is anything legal about what goes on between the two of you.]
• The person who is developing an equitable right to my property [Legal #1, problematic because in addition to not being romantic, I'm told it could also apply to someone who is doing extensive renovations on your property with an unwritten promise of having an ownership share.]
• The person through whom I am eligible for dental benefits and an extended-health plan [This is at least unambiguous if you're over 25; on the other hand, you should be calling someone like this "my treasure of incalculable worth".]
• My intimate companion [Cloying unless you're a pair of entirely platonic friends from the early 1800s].
• The person with whom I am in a relationship of some permanence [Legal #2 - see Ontario's Family Law Act, Part 3].

Of course, some of our favourite bloggers (or ex-bloggers) have terms they like to use. Harmony used to use the saucy "my lovah", Hella Stella talks about her "BH", and J spells it out and calls A her "better half" from time to time.

Unfortunately for my research, most local bloggers seem to be either living without conjugal partners or purport to be actually married. Nevertheless, it was by going through blogs of people who are living with another person without the sanction of church or state that I found the word that I think should be claimed by the unwed.

I had been calling up archive pages and doing a ctrl-F for "my " to find possible alternative terms, but on the blog of J's better half A, The Adventures of your Mom, I found a term I think is perfect just by reading the second most recent posting:

So homeslice Paul and I went to pickup (sic) his new 49 burger capacity BBQ. Of course no mojor (sic) purchase goes without issue at Crappy Tire[.] (sic)

I had been reading so many blogs at this point that I forgot whose blog I was reading. The title made me think I was reading a mommy blog and I figured Paul must be the mommy's conjugal relation. "Homeslice," I thought, "what a great word!"

Imagine my disappointment when I realized that this was not some suburban mom talking about her bbq loving man, but instead tough guy A referring to his completely het pal. Then I went to the Urban Dictionary and confirmed that "homeslice" is a synonym for "homeboy" or "homie" that is favoured by caucasian youths.

But my disappointment doesn't have to last and you can help. I've submitted a new definition of "homeslice" to the Urban Dictionary. If the editors accept it, it will show up soon. Probably on page 4. If enough of you click the thumbs-up, it will move up, maybe even to #1.

Word Cop - Just go with "For example"

Case and Point?

ZeroMeansZero - Case and point the ongoing saga of the sewage into our river... [1 additional demerit for missing comma after "point". 3 additional demerits for gratuitous cheap shots throughout blog].

Beholding and Becoming - “When the Kings Come Marching In” is case and point.

Aggravated Cases - Use in Blog Title:

Case and point - http://spencercaselog.blogspot.com/ I am Spencer Case, currently known as Specialist Case among my battle buddies in the 207th MPAD [2 additional demerits because when your name is Case and you are in the military, "Case in point" would have been a way better name for your blog. However, sentence is suspended due to the mitigating factor that you blogged in Iraq and your last post in 2006 says you should be going home soon and then nothing... ]

Case and Point - Case for and point of living. Maybe. Big stuff. Small stuff. All good stuff. [1 additional demerit for not using other possible definitions of "case and point", for example, "surreptitiously search a building and identify valuable items"]

CASE AND POINT - MY POINTS I THINK THAT MAY BE OF INTREST TO MOST PEOPLE. AND sell race cars and parts [Penalty: HTTP 404. Use in Title combined with use of upper case that switches to lower case for no apparent reason and mispelling of "interest", with no mitigating factors

Too many other examples to cite here.

Further research is suggested to verify the hypothesis that those who use "case and point" have more extreme and less tolerant opinions than those who use "case in point", but that both groups are less strident than those who instead use "for example", "such as", or "like".

Alerts for Deputized Word Cops from Language Log:

1. "Wile away" may actually be acceptable.
2. Keep your eyes open for overzealous censoring software that produces text with words like "clbuttic", "conbreastution" and "Buttociated Press"
   

Cryptic Word Cop: A chewy fruit cookie?

Or did you mean Pure Milk Chocolate Covered Mint Oreo?

* Baylinkbot is a Fig Newton of my imagination.

* No longer a fig-newton of my imagination, Our Lady of Weight Loss: Miraculous and Motivational Musings from the Patron Saint of Permanent Fat Removal - is HERE!

* No doubt a Saxon stronghold in the 10th century, the Normans built the substantial keep in the 11th century. ... In the late 20th century the castle emerged as a fig-newton of my imagination.

* Please explain or better yet show me that coydogs and lynx cats can not exist. I have ridden a mule, was that a fig-newton of my imagination? Give us just one fact Carico, just one.

* I’m sure you wish it were so, good nurse, but alas: Lanny is merely a fig newton of my imagination.