Juicy, Yummy, Superwords: A Treat(ise)
By Frank Spellman
Translated by Tyler Mendelsohn
Abstract
The objective of this hybrid work of academic research and personal narrative is to prove to the reader — both through facts and through anecdotal evidence — the need for an expansion of our vocabulary. It can be labeled “postmodern” in that I am looking to build upon that which has already been done. I am proposing that, rather than create words out of thin air, we hybridize previously existing words. As such, the form of the subsequent work will match the content.
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In modern times, one need not look far to hear mention of “superfoods” — that eponymous group of antioxidant rich foods, said to do everything from prevent certain types of cancer to slow down the aging process. It would be safe to say that if one were to eat just one superfood a day every day for the remainder of one’s life — while it wouldn’t hurt — it would make but a minor difference. It’s in a steady diet of superfoods that one adds years to one’s life.
It was in considering the above that I came upon the idea for superwords[1]. Language, much like food, has the potential for both affecting immense positive change and causing catastrophic damage. The difference between spinach and the word “few” is that spinach, for the most part, is straightforward. One need not interpret spinach. Despite one’s opinion on its taste, spinach always = health[2]. However, let’s say I was to hear on the news that a bomb has gone off in a neighboring town; hundreds are believed to be dead. I jump into my car and rush off to the town, and, when I get there — to my relief — there are only two casualties. I exclaim, “Few!”
…Or, at least, that’s what you hear. What I mean is “phew,” a very human, spur-of-the-moment sound, indicating my relief that so many lives were spared. But what you hear, “few!”, sounds to you like: “Ha! Such few deaths! Barely even newsworthy!”
See the violence there?
Superwords are the combination of homonyms to ensure [not insure — though I’ll get to this particular cocktail of words shortly] that we are always saying what we mean. English is one of the rare languages containing few words for specific feelings often shared by many [“schadenfreude”, for example, was borrowed from the Germans]. So why don’t we combine the words “dye” and “die” [“diye”] to connote that very specific period of time when one’s once-cool hair dye look has devolved into that vaguely orange, faded bleach look? For use in a sentence: “My hair has diyed.”
As a young kid I had a precocious sense of the intricacies of language, which had its downsides. My sensitivity surrounding all things linguistic sent me home in tears more times than I can count. Speaking as we are now of counting, I will relate a short anecdote.
Having been told many a time by peers that I was “odd,” I developed an affinity for sentences that contained an odd number of words. Call it silly, call it strange, but mostly it was — quite literally — odd, and that was my end goal. I figured I would own what was obviously meant as a criticism. Perhaps it relates once again to my precocious understanding of the power of words: the power of reclaiming a word.
My third-grade teacher took me aside one afternoon after we had taken a test that prominently featured essay questions. She said, “Frank, you are a very smart boy, and as such I am concerned as to why you take so much longer than the other students to write your essays.” As I trusted this particular teacher, I told her about my odd hobby. She immediately opened her drawer, pulled out a dictionary, and thumbed to the word “Odd.” The official definition read:
odd
adjective: odd; comparative adjective: odder; superlative adjective: oddest
- different from what is usual or expected; strange.
“the neighbors thought him very odd”
| synonyms: | strange, peculiar, weird, queer, funny, bizarre, abnormal, eccentric, unusual, unconventional, outlandish, quirky, zany;informal wacky, kooky, screwy, freaky, oddball, offbeat, off the wall, out there “an odd man”strange, unusual, peculiar, funny, curious, bizarre, weird, uncanny, queer, outré, unexpected, unfamiliar, abnormal, atypical, anomalous, different, out of the ordinary, out of the way, exceptional, rare, extraordinary, remarkable, puzzling, mystifying, mysterious, perplexing, baffling, unaccountable, uncommon, irregular, singular, deviant, aberrant, freak, freakish;informal fishy, freaky
“quite a few odd things had happened” |
||
| antonyms: | normal, conventional, ordinary, usual | ||
- 2. (of whole numbers such as 3 and 5) having one left over as a remainder when divided by two.
- in the region of or somewhat more than a particular number or quantity.suffix:
-odd
“she looked younger than her fifty-odd years”
3. happening or occurring infrequently and irregularly; occasional.
- “neither did she want a secret affair, snatching odd moments together”
| synonyms: | occasional, casual, irregular, isolated, random, sporadic, periodic; More miscellaneous, various, varied, sundry “we have the odd drink together” | ||
| antonyms: | regular, scheduled | ||
4. separated from a usual pair or set and therefore out of place or mismatched.
- “he’s wearing odd socks”
She pointed to the first list of definitions and said, “Look, under number one alone there are a whole list of varying words. See, there, it says ‘Funny’! I think we can all agree that you have quite the knack for humor. And that’s only scratching the surface! Look at number three. See how it says that ‘odd’ also means ‘happening infrequently’? What if — instead of owning what you perceive to be an insult — you think of the word itself as a compliment? They’re saying that people like you happen infrequently. They’re saying that you’re unique.”
It was at this point that I believe the first stems of my vision were planted. Because — while I agreed with her on some level — I was astute enough to know that my peers were not intending to compliment me. The word “odd” is generally assumed to mean “weird”. It was then I realized that our predecessors had already given the beautiful language seeds to us; we just needed to plant them. In other words, our language is rich, but criminally underused. If a single word has multiple meanings, but only one is commonly used, the other meanings could atrophy. Add super muscle to a word by combining it with its fellow words.
(As for the above-mentioned case: obviously, “odd” has no homonym-twin and thus cannot become a superword. However, it was an important moment in the development of my theory and therefore important to include.)
In 2005 I did a study about the effects of misused words on peoples’ sex drives. My thought process when entering the project was that our sexual responses are some of the most natural, and the most difficult to obscure when under the harsh, probing lights of a sexual response monitor. In other words, I figured that if I attached a machine to a person’s genitals, I was likely to get an honest response. That said, when measuring results, I did account for nervousness and the general oddness of the laboratory setting.
I made several homemade pornographic videos, also employing volunteers, containing all different combinations of sexes and genders and dress styles [though, the clothes played but a bit part, if you know what I mean]. I wanted to have a video available to correspond to every participant’s stated preferences. The only similarity between all the videos is that things got quite sexy in each.
However, at the most climactic moment of each video, I had one of the actors use a homonym that was bound to be misinterpreted by the viewer in such a context. For instance, if the video was made for a person who preferred gentle, loving sex, I had one of the actors lovingly exclaim, in the heat of passion, “I want to HOARDE you!” Of course, in this scene, the actor intends this as a proclamation of loving feelings; he means he wants more and more of her.
As this work is intended for an audience of upstanding citizens, I will not relate what most people think they are hearing when they are watching a pornographic video and someone yells out the word “HOARDE!”
As mentioned above, I attached a machine to peoples’ genitals and measured their sexual responses. The results were as I expected them to be. For instance, when I showed the previously mentioned video to the people who referred to sex as “making love”, their genitalia all but withered. Then again, when I showed the same video to dominants and submissives alike, their genitals lit up like a Christmas tree. In either case, it was a misused homonym that had such a profound impact on their genital response. The results, in table form, are below:
| Genital Reaction | Misheard (as reported in survey) Homonyms |
| 9 | 12 |
It is at this point that I feel it important to give the reader a more direct education as to the use of superwords in daily communication. I will start with an earlier example; that of the word “ensure” as opposed to the word “insure.” Can we not all agree that in an ideal world, the only health insurance would be universal health ensurance: guaranteed, or ensured, healthcare?
Or what of my having to explain away my odd-word-sentence fixation of yester-yester-yester-yester-yester-decade? We all went through embarrassing phases, but to have to relate them is often to be forced into an uncomfortable minutes-long explanation, with ample prefacing. However, there is often an overarching theme to these phases; if there were a word for it, it would save us the time and discomfort. Few people would disagree that any teenager who aligns him or herself with an extreme “type” is usually doing so for shock value — to “faze” one’s parents or one’s peers. If we combined the words “phase” and “faze” to refer to that unfortunate Goth or Emo period in one’s adolescent development, it would save the over-explaining; one could finally, at long last, feel understood.
What follows is not in any way an exhaustive list of superwords, but a jumping off point for rookies in the field. For a more comprehensive list, refer to my book, Superwords: Fighting Linguistic Crime[3]:
Aought: [combination of “ought”, meaning “should” and “aught,” meaning “anything”] Essentially, the philosophy of “anything goes;” in other words, what one “should” do is “anything one wants to do.”
Baite: [combination of “bait”, meaning “to torment” and “bate”, meaning “to lessen”] Tormenting by lessening contact; essentially, a more specific word for “neglect.”
Barrd: [combination of “bard”, meaning “a poet” and “barred”, meaning “obstructed] A poet who specializes in imposed limitations.
Beaow: [combination of “beau”, meaning “boyfriend” and “bow” meaning “a ribbon”] A boyfriend who dresses in a stereotypically feminine manner.
Bruiwes: [combination of “bruise”, meaning “a contusion” and “brews” meaning “multiple beers”] That specific set of bruises one is likely to find on one’s person the morning following a heavy beer-drinking session.
Discust: [combination of “discussed”, meaning “spoken about” and “disgust” meaning “revulsion”] A past conversation that the speaker had deemed repulsive, i.e.: “Yes, we ‘discust’ the city’s sewer system.”
Foreward: [combination of “foreword”, meaning “an introduction to a book” and “forward”, meaning “moving ahead”] A foreword that is integral to the story at hand; in other words, a foreword that moves the story forward.
Fouwl: [combination of “fowl”, meaning “a hen or a rooster” and “foul”, meaning “repulsive”] A hen’s or a rooster’s feces.
I will let those who wish to learn more superwords obtain a copy of my book and flip to the letter “G”, as I don’t want to lose my audience. I recently learned that TL;DR, Internet-language for “too-long; didn’t read”, is common parlance. (Which, while being sad for what kind of a culture it connotes, is also sad for its misuse of the semi-colon and over-use of the fragment. Clearly, the creator of this “phrase” does not ever read.) As I would like this piece to appeal to all types of people, I will leave further research for those who feel compelled to buy my book.[4]
I think it’s important to acknowledge that my proposal certainly has its detractors.
Last fall, I attended the annual WURD (We Update and Renew Discourse) Conference. I lovingly referred to my fellow attendees as oxy-morons; those people were sharp as a knife, but often quite absent-minded. I recall a twenty-something oxy-moron making the case that the prefix for the word “homonym”, “homo”, is the same prefix used for the word “homogeneous”; was I calling, she asked, for some sort of linguistic ethnocide?
(Of course, there were old, white oxy-morons on the other end of the spectrum that insisted I was promoting a “Homo Agenda” — but such absurdities I won’t even bother to address.)
After having listened intently to the woman, I acknowledged the astuteness of her point. The word “homonym” certainly does contain the same prefix as the word “homogenous.”
However, I pointed out, I am not proposing to wipe out any previously existing words. Just because the word “aought” would now exist, for instance, does not mean that I propose to abolish the words “aught” and “ought” in their original forms. What I am proposing, I continued, is merely an expansion of our language, using the tools — aka words — already given to us by our predecessors. While it may be beyond human capacity to entirely prevent linguistic violence, I then said emotionally, it is certainly within our means to change the way we speak. As I spoke, I believe she closed her eyes and nodded her head in agreement; her eyes were certainly moving and her head was certainly shaking. She then clapped appreciatively slowly and sat down with a grateful smirk plastered to her face.
I intend this piece to be a titillating beginner’s guide for those who want to read my seminal work. I do not believe referring to my work as “seminal” to be a conceit, as one meaning of the world “seminal” is “original”; I am currently the only person writing on the subject. My hope is that, with a larger readership, we will start to see more discourse on the subject of superwords. Perhaps, ultimately, superwords will not require their own dictionary; perhaps they will sit alongside their word-brothers and word-sisters in the regular dictionary. I do not believe it to be blindly optimistic to hope for a world of linguistic inclusion and peace.
Footnotes:
[1] Often wrongly attributed to that children’s show It’s A Wondrous World, which, in 1994, featured the song whose lyrics contained the refrain: “Words are super! Super words!”
[2] It has been argued that too much spinach — like too much of anything — could be harmful. To this I reply that I speak of humans, not of the cartoon, Popeye the Sailor Man.
[3] Incorrectly listed under “Satire” in the “Fiction” section at all local library branches and major bookstores. As yet they refuse to return my phone calls requesting to be placed in either the “social sciences” or “semiotics” sections.
[4] Buying my book supports my research. The world is practically overflowing with genitalia
Acknowledgements:
I wish to thank my third-grade teacher, Ms. Bailey, for encouraging a profound revelation in me.
References:
Spellman F. Superwords: Fighting Linguistic Crime. Baltimore, Maryland: Self-Published, 1999.
Spellman F. Sex and Textuality. Basement, House, 2001.
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