In this Discussion
- agentnumone December 2010
- ChristelAdina December 2010
- KristaMichelle December 2010
- pemi_blue December 2010
- Sunnyside July 2010
- violetchaos364 December 2010
Goofy Giggles and Witty Wordplay
You know those moments where your brain starts manipulating words and sounds simply for your amusement? When you start riffing with random words, or you hear the lyric to a song wrong or only catch part of a passing conversation? Or when you suddenly get the unstoppable giggles, say after a day filled with editing some of the most unintentionally absurd abuses of the English language ever seen, and you must, MUST play with words and sounds and symbols and meanings in a purposeful, yet purely puerile manner to give those giggles a justifiable pardon? Sometimes, something silly simply springs forth, unbidden from the back of the brain's language centers, and there's no rhyme or reason to it at all (but it's better when there's rhyme!).
I have these moments all the time. I had one just now, in fact, and I came here to post about it, well, because it occurred to me to do so. I wasn't sure where to put it, so I decided that I wanted to start a new general topic. Although this is random, it isn't "Random Stuff", because it's specifically for wondrous words and silly sounds and such. Or I hope it will be. It's also not a poem (though, the thing that made me want to post a new thread in the first place is a bit poetic), so I couldn't put it in one of those threads. It's not about made up words and it's nothing to do with Damianisms, necessarily, so it wouldn't fit in the Dictionary of Damian thread (but by all means add your invented terms if you've got them!). It doesn't belong in the Doctor Who thread, even though I know the people who read that will probably appreciate the origins of this particular example of my extreme geekiness. Finally, although it makes me exceedingly happy, it also does not belong in the Happy List (but I may post in there after this).
Therefore, I give you Goofy Giggles and Witty Wordplay. A place for parody, a haven of overheard hilarity, a landing strip (or a launching pad) for linguistic lunacy, a morphological meeting point, a repository of rhetoric, a venue for verbosity, a sanctuary for semantic subversives and, apparently, an asylum for alliteration addicts.
Comments
I often start Slaughtering Shakespeare when my mind isn't otherwise occupied. I have butchered the Bard for cheap laughs on many an occasion. I cannot tell you how often the parodies play on food, but let's just say I've found myself in the undiscovered pantry countless times.
Tonight, however, I was checking my Twitter feed for a response about T-shirts and Britcoms before deciding whether to post to my blog or put it off in favor of playing a solo round of Radio Roulette. Wil Wheaton had posted something, of course, as he is wont to do. It was nothing to do with Shakespeare, it was actually about the Doctor Who theme, but for some reason my brain began this soliloquy:
To blog or not to blog-That is the question
Whether 'tis nobler on the net to suffer
The trolls and spammers of outrageous comment
Or to take acronyms against a sea of Twitter
And by retweeting, send them.
To post, to tweet--
No more--and by a tweet to say we send
the lolcats, and the thousand geeky jokes
The web is heir to. 'Tis procrastination
Virally to publish. To post, to tweet--
To tweet--perchance to meme
There was more. I did most of that soliloquy, but at that point I had been laughing so hard I wasn't able to type the rest (and I actually Tweeted this much, because I'm such a Nerd, but no one seemed to read it, so I would've stopped there anyway).
Ah, yes. I shall link to my LJ thus:
Lexiambicon:
Selections from Amber’s Phrase Reference and Lexicon Guide
http://violetchaos-364.livejou.....50088.html
That's the main entry. Click on "lexiambicon" in the word bubble on the left for more entries, though I believe I did compile everything in the above link. (Click also on "context what context" for random, out of context quotes.)
The Lexiambicon is a list of words and phrases myself and my friends use that I've provided with definitions, origins, and examples.
Two examples:
Believe it or not, I also have trouble getting Beeblebrox off of my tongue. I have taken to trying to use it in place of less appropriate expletives (I swear a lot) when I'm in public. Because it's much better to mutter "Beeblebrox!" in the supermarket check-out line, than it is to introduce the toddler in the cart in front of you to his first "F***king H*ll!"
Plus, it's funnier for him to repeat, because his parents have no idea what he's saying!
I'm actually re-reading the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (all 5 books!) this weekend because I'm still stuck in my apartment. Also because I just re-read Good Omens which always makes me want to read Douglas Adams.
Lexiambicon! Brilliant!
Of course, I have one of these too. Different name, naturally, but you know… I love when great minds think.
Also, I'm wondering if we have past friends in common? Because I use both of your example terms, although the verb "to Faramir" (Hey Kids! It's fun with conjugation time!) has a slightly different meaning, and I usually say "the 12-inch extended dance remix" of whatever the unbelievable behemoth in question happens to be. But that's because I've been saying it since high school and I think I'm older than you.
Edited: I had to come back because, Amber, I love you.
“I would read more about Calvinism, but I don’t know German.”
Uh. That flows
I have a list of related terms that correspond to you group of geek words, except mine applies to rock stars, groupies, musicians and touring…
In the geek group, however, my favorite of mine is:
Differential Geekometry:
The highly theoretical, and also, theoretically hysterical, socio-mathematical discipline used to study problems in geek interaction. Best illustrated by watching two previously unacquainted geeks in the painful throes of initial interface, aka First Contact.
Example and Explanation of Related Disciplines:
On the plane of the surface between the two specimens, there is, perhaps, a round table. Does the curvature of the table, relative to the size of its sphere, influence where the geeks will choose to sit in relation to one another? This equation is sometimes known as the Riemann curvature tenseness. How is this relationship altered by the fact that one geek wears a brown coat?<–This is a Meta-tensor, and brings us into the realm of Pseudo-Whedonian Geekometry , which is discussed in another entry, but which is often related to Apoplectic Geekometry, and before you ask, No. Apoplectic Geekometry isn't a result of Contact Geekometry. There is no such thing as Contact Geekometry (it's possible that there once was such a thing, but if so, it was a vanishing function).
There is (has been and will be) more of that… but you get the idea.
Hi. Me again.
Still reading the Lexiambicon between editing assignments. Oh my god, Amber!
I also use the term "pastoral gymnastics!" Although, once the Biblical Origami connotations weren't so prevalent, it took on a second meaning, which was both more pastoral and, uh, more gymnastic. The term for me, now, is more or less synonymous with "Under The Boat".
Under The Boat
Common Usage:
(1) To suddenly find oneself in a dark and seemingly secluded space–though possibly still surrounded by a multitude of people–with the object of one's desire. Often causes inability to breathe.* Breathing difficulty is directly proportionate to how ardent one's desire is for one's companion. Being Under The Boat is sometimes a direct result of being Under The Table.
*Probably going to have to update this entry now, given certain song lyrics.
(2) (Euphemism) As "Under The Table" is to drinking, so "Under The Boat" is to F***ing.
Less Common Usage:
Under The Boat may also mean in lust, or the act of falling in lust. Esp. when said lust is blinding.
"I should have just crawled under the table immediately when Keith Richards sat down next to me with a bottle of Jack, but when the guys from OK Go showed up, I slid right under the boat, and therefore cannot be held responsible for the stormy seas and drunken sailors that fell in the wake of my many reported lapses of judgment!"
I have recently sought a cure for being "under the boat". The only thing that worked was to imagine the person with a hideous stubby tail. (
I almost deleted that because it sounds so silly but I won't because I know someone might get a laugh
.)
You got a laugh out of me .
I find it hilarious that you had to imagine this person with a tail that is both hideous AND stubby! 
It also made me think that this person must be all kinds of attractive if you have to go that far to avoid being Under The Boat...
He is very much all kinds of attractive. A longer tail just made him seem exotic!
This almost made it to the happy list thread, but it belongs here.
The background:
1. My friend Craig has a radio show called "Snap Crackle Pop", which I sometimes host or co-host. He plays melodic pop from the 60s right up to sometime yesterday. You can tell when I'm in the studio (or even on the phone) because there is generally a greater preponderance of all things Jellyfish-related (which includes OKGo, by the way).
2. A mutual friend, Marc, also has a radio show. It's called "The Sunday Morning Hangover" and it's more thematic week-to-week (the last one was Beatnik themed, which I re-christened "Coffee and Kerouac"), but really Marc just plays the kind of things you can't believe you're actually hearing at 10 a.m. on a Sunday.
3. Craig has two boys who are avid listeners to both shows.
The middle-ground:
1. Marc has been filling holes in the station's summer schedule lately, so his show has been migrating. Today was "Monday Morning Hangover".
2. Craig was saying that Marc would be on the air today.
The foreground:
1. When Craig was talking to the kids about Marc's special show today, the oldest, completely straight and beguilingly innocent asked, "Why can't we have a hangover every day?"
(Quoting CSN and chuckling) Craig said in mock-cautionary tones, "Teach your children well."
(Quoting no one and lauging outright) I said in mirthful glee, "Not until college."
Today has been full of things that amuse me, and I just had a multiple amusement episode, so it doesn't even matter that I'm practically the only person posting in this thread. I'm going to share one of the wordier amusements (because that's the kind of woman I am).
Amber replied to a comment of mine in which I was woeful about my wordiness in a proposal I'm drafting. I said, "Brevity is... not my forte" and she agreed, saying "No. Not your forte." and teasing that she had picked that up right away.
So, bereft of brevity as I am, I responded with this:
"...I shall state it right up front, so the readers are forewarned about my complete lack of laconicism.
Personally, I doubt that brevity is the very soul of wit, based solely on the example I, myself, present. I'm told quite often that I am very witty and that I am very witty quite often, but I am very rarely brief. Using that evidence, and applying basic logic, you can follow my reasoning and reach my same suspicions that brevity and wit are not truly the soul mates they so often claim to be. This statement is a sham! `Tis a spurious saying!
Brevity is NOT the soul of wit. Brevity is ... not my forte."
Yes. I am a word nerd.
Okay, I can totally imagine Stephen Fry saying this.
Today's T-shirt slogan:
(Front)- "Fuck the demitasse..."
(Back) - "KEGS of espresso!"
Brought to you by troughs of coffee and canals of caffeine.
This is for Tempe, who said she was mesmerized by some Britspeak I typed on the topic of tea:
Didn't know quite where to post it, but as it's extremely goofy, and involves witty wordplay, (as well as caffeine, so apropos of Cristel's last comment), thought this as good a place as any. Also, I really like this thread...
PemiBlue, I love that video. I had seen it before, but I never tire of it. In addition to my coffee dependence, I have a love of tea (Lapsang Soochong and certain brands of Irish Breakfast, specifically) that is also as much about the caffeine as it is about the ritual of tea itself. And I have a love of absurd musical brilliance. Thanks for posting it.
And I'm glad you like this thread. Please continue to contribute to it.
Hah! I hear you, Amber. If those nano-biologists would just get on the ball and get caffeine molecules to carry oxygen, we'd be all set.
Thanks, Christel, I'm glad you like that video. Yeah, the ritual of making the tea is definitely part of it. Some people stretch when they take a break, I make a cup of tea. I'm not all that particular as to the blend... well, so long as it's a black tea with milk. I definitely relate to the "Herbal? No thanks! Herbal? No thanks!!!" in the video. English breakfast, irish breakfast, darjeeling, yer basic organic black tea, chai, thai tea, all good.
But back to the thread--phrases caught in my head. I find I get word earworms as often as I do melodic earworms, and it sounds like that's part of what you're talking about. I'm really liking "Beeblebrox," above, and "To post, to tweet–To tweet–perchance to meme." Both made me laugh, and I sorta suspect I'll be hearing them again soon.
Today I've got "what if a much of a which of a wind" going round. Yesterday it was "bartleby the scrivener." Mostly, I'm hearing the sounds of the syllables. But sometimes if I stop for a moment, I'll realize my subconscious is prodding me. Yesterday when I was on "Bartleby the Scrivener," I was having a full on heels-dug-in Bartleby "I would prefer not to" moment. Alright, alright, a whole "prefer not to" afternoon. So I stopped and had some tea.
OK Go lyrics are so great along these lines. So many great, pithy, fun-to-say phrases... I love "'cause nothing ever doesn't change, but nothing changes much." I swear I was watching the video and it came right out and grabbed me. Like a 3D jumping puppy.
Hello PemiBlue - you are my friend! I love words and syllables and all that. Have you heard of Stephen Fry?
A line from the chorus of a 'Company of Thieves' song is:
"We are all our own, we are all our own, we are all our own devils"
If that doesn't roll and flow or whatever, I don't know what does.
Damian's alterations and sound/word sense and ETC! just floors me.
Yay!!! Word geeks unite!
Yes I think Stephen Fry is wonderful. I think I first saw him in "Peter's Friends" and then "IQ," but particularly enjoyed "Jeeves and Wooster." But why do you mention him? How did come across him?
Damian's--what shall we call them?--lexicogymnastics are indeed remarkable. Still pretty new to the catalog of all things OK Go (besides the music), and I'm sure I've only come across a small fraction of what's out there. The super-stacked-up-compound words are great -- the "psycho-spacial-acousto-musical journey" "psychodonkical" etc. But it's not just Damian either. You hear Tim coming up with them as well.
I had a roommate from Germany who would compound words in English the way they do in German, eg. Fußballnationalmannschaft (national soccer team) (and that's a short one!). She would come up with some awesome compound words and I could never bring myself to correct her, they were so stellar.
I also totally have a soft spot for lyrics with alliteration/assonance/internal rhymes. Currently streaming: "precious, suspicious, and charming, and vicious."