1/27/12 More Fauxcabulary Words
People generally speak differently depending who they talk to. At work you use industry jargon. At the bar with your buds you curse like a sailor. At a family gathering you don't curse like a sailor. Unless maybe you come from a family of salty-talking sailors. The point is, our speech is flexible, we adjust for who, when and where. For this I have coined some bits of fauxcabulary...
flexicon (FLEKS e-kon) noun, words one uses tailored to the audience or social setting.
Within our flexicon there are any number of subsets. Following my usual formula of combining two words into a single portmanteau word, here are a few more using synonyms for lexicon like lingo, argot, and patios. Here are but a few.
gobble-degeek (GAH bul dee geek), tech terms you sort-of know used to impress people who don't know.
Texicon (TEK se kon), words used to sound like a Texan, y'all.
ar-r-rgot (ARRR go), words used to sound like a pirate, ye matie.
phatois (fah TWA), words used to sound like a gansta, dog.
badda-balingo (bah dah bah LIN-go), words used to sound like an Italian gangster, capice?
libberish (LIH-ber ish), politically correct terms used in politically correct society.
bluephemism (BLOO fem iz-um), substitute term for a sexual act or naughty bit. Sometimes more polite versions, sometimes more raunchy. 'Naughty bit' is an example of the former, an example of the latter I leave to your imagination.
brocabulary (bro KAB yoo lar-ree), words used among male friends. Often as not a lot of bluephemisms and no libberish.
hocabulary (ho KAB yoo lar-ree), female version of brocabulary.
That's all I got. Yar, I'm out, y'all fuggitabouddit.
Filed under Word Definitions & Origins
1/24/12 Beyond ESP
Top Ten Pretty Much Worthless Paranormal Powers:
Rubberglubility: Ability to have insults bounce of you and stick to the insulter.
Oblivoyance: Ability to have sounds go in one ear and out the other.
Revoyance: Ability to bounce ideas off people.
Televoyance: Ability to project your thoughts into inanimate objects. For thinking inside or outside the box.
Unvoyance: Ability to know what people are not thinking.
Nix-ray vision: Ability to see the invisible. When used clear things are opaque. Which, unfortunately, includes the air.
Chronosis: Ability to speed or slow time and yourself at the same rate. Which makes no difference to anyone else, or yourself for that matter.
Circularnation: Ability to die and come back as yourself and do it all over again exactly the same way, though you never realize it.
Paralevitation: Ability to levitate in weightless environments.
Gullibility: Ability to believe the unbelievable.
And five sensory perceptions that aren't so worthless. Ability to smell a rat, taste success, feel good, hear opportunity knocking, and see the truth.
Filed under Top Tens & Other Lists
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Or Stupid Automobile Tricks
Lots of people have fond memories of their first car, a warm fuzzy nostalgia for that symbol of youthful independence. First cars are often used cars, often very used. Meaning they might have had more value as a cube of crushed scrap metal than as transportation. Still, the cash-strapped youth of America would buy these zombie-mobiles to squeeze out a few more miles before sending them to remeet their makers. Being a cash-strapped American youth, I participated in this sort-of cash for clunkers program.
Such vehicle leftovers would often as not have some rather unique non-standard aftermarket add-ons not found at any auto parts store. "Features" were added, a wire coat-hanger aerial, duck tape Bondo. And parts were missing, little things, radio knobs, the radio itself, a bumper or two. Many bits didn't work as well as they once had, in some cases not at all. Heaters became air-conditioning, but only in winter. Hand-cranked windows became hand-pulled windows. Or windows might have been plastic sheeting duck-taped in place. (Duck tape heals all auto wounds.)
We called these nearly washed-up cars beaters. I think this originally comes from winter-beater, which were older cars folks drove to prevent road salt from eating their primary cars which were stored in the garage all winter. Though, as in my case, a beater was sometimes someone's only car.
I was maybe nineteen when I bought my first car, a beater, which cost all of one hundred dollars. A very used 1964 Ford Falcon. Your basic, no-frills economy car, six cylinders, three-speed manual transmission, vinyl-covered front bench seat, rubber floor mats....
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Less Money and Inflation Equals Recession
According to mainstream measurements today, the money supply (M3) is going down, GDP is going up, though modestly, and we have inflation. This is impossible. Which I will now explain.
When we hear inflation we think rising prices. Does inflation signify an expanding economy? Can a contracting economy have inflation? What is Inflation?
It seems some people think of inflation only in terms of a rising money supply. These folks would be confused where the money supply goes down yet prices go up. If we correctly diagnose what inflation is, the confusion vanishes.
Why do prices rise? Before answering that we must answer, what determines prices. The short answer, supply and demand. The purest example is an auction. The more people bidding (demand) on an item (supply) the higher the price will go. On the other hand, where there is low demand and high supply prices are bid lower.
Demand is money, supply is goods. Prices can be derived by dividing demand in money terms by supply, or goods. The ratio of money per goods gives the price. This can be indicated as a fraction, M/G. Goods are products and services, in other words production. Put another way, prices are the ratio of money per production, M/P.
Base case: $1000/1000units = $1/unit
The price will change when the ratio changes, when the amounts on either side of the fraction change at a different rates. There are five cases which increase the price of units...
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