Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Let's add to the Lexicon

Some New Words for the Blogging Universe

Kathy Shaidle wrote this about Hilary White who was writing about Kathy Shaidle, as she was coining a new verb for the English language, aptly named after Kathy Shaidle:

Hilary White, who is no slouch herself, writes:

Today, when I was having my daily call with my editor, I used the expression "my inner Kathy Shaidle".

I think "Kathy Shaidle" needs to be coined as a verb. "To Kathy Shaidle" should mean to express oneself without the slightest nod to the accepted niceties of expression; to speak bluntly about topics considered sacrosanct; deliberately to face up to and comment freely upon subjects that are considered taboo by the bien pensants; to blast Goodthinkfulness to smithereens on a daily basis.

Colloquial: "They tried to silence me with lawsuits and visits from Ahmed the killer pimp, but I Shaidled their cringing politically correct butts".

I don't think that only Kathy Shaidle should have her own verb or noun for that matter. Why even adjectives should be spread around the blogosphere. So, here are a few that I offer up for your review and thoughts.

For example:

Binking

The inimitable Binks over at Free Canuckistan here is a very good writer, but also points readers to the musings of other bloggers often with no additional commentary, or occasional a brief bon mot. I think we could call that "Binking". There is a particular style to the way that our Binks does it, and so if you are capable of replicating it, then you are "Binking". All else is just providing links.

You can bink a blog, or have your blog binked, and you could be the proud owner of a binked blog. I have been binked and have made a diploma of the binkings which are proudly displayed over my desk.

Levanting

Many people use their blogs to vent their spleens (what a wierd metaphor that is), and I guess en francais, it could be le venting (sort of), but what I am referring to here is a style of blogging that is taking the HRC world by storm, created by our own beloved Ezra Levant.

At the moment there is only one Ezra Levant, but if you could do what he does I think you would be levanting. So, to write a blog in a pithy (no lithp), humourously bombastic, in your face, take no prisoners, while leaving them rolling in the aisles style, with legal support from court documents to ensure that the truth is not mistaken is to levant.

Only Ezra levants each time out. Some of the rest of us can levant a paragraph or two on a lucky day. Most don't even try, because it is a rather special style. I think that if you were to somehow replicate the style with sincerity, it would be levantish, or levanty, and you would have been levanting.

Blazing

Blazing Cat Fur, spouse of Five Feet of Fury, which makes me wonder which one of them changed their last name. Did Blazing Cat shorten his, or Five Feet of lengthen hers, or as sometimes happens did Fur marry Fury. It's like the joke about the two Irishmen leaving the pub. It could happen.

Anyway, back to Blazing. Where Ezra Levant shreds ne'er do wells at length and also at breadth, BCF flames them out, or blazes them quickly and points us to the offending documents. So, it's a lot like being Shaidled, but sorta not.

Smouched

Most of the bloggers that I read are really pretty good in their own right at doing what Scaramouche does best, but I like his style, and so I have labeled it s(cara)mouching. Smouching is a form of hoisting with one's own petard. This seems totally appropriate for someone who models himself after the hero of the Rafael Sabatini novel that opened with the line: "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."

Scaramouche smouches his victims by replaying their stupidity for you in his blog, and then skewers them with their own nonsense, thereby hoisting them on their own petard. By the way, a petard was a small bomb for breaching gates and fortifications dating back to the 16th century. The word petard also derives from the french word for the expulsion of natural gas in the human body downward as it were, if you get my meaning. So there's a little graphic for you of smouching.

So smouche away lads and lassies, but Scaramouche does it best.

It's not a slow day really, just a slow day mentally, so nothing profound coming out of the brain pan.


1 comment:

Rebekah said...

Linkback from missmarprelate.blogspot.com

Some new words for your dictionary. I have to admit that I also have my binkings embossed in gold and framed on the wall. Maybe someday, somewhere, someone will refer to my posts as binking. Then I can die happily.