Shit Happens

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Or the story of how a humble little word took on the combined might of the world's great religions - and won

Taoism
Shit happens


Confucianism
Confucius says, shit happens


Buddhism
If shit happens, it isn't really shit


Zen
What is the sound of shit happening?


Hinduism
This shit has happened before


Islam
If shit happens, it is the will of Allah


Protestantism
Let shit happen to someone else


Catholicism
If shit happens, you deserve it

Judaism
Why does this shit always happen to us?


Atheism
I don't believe this shit


Agnosticism
What is this shit?


Innergy
Just observe the shit passing by

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The SNAIL

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Wonderful Words: Part 2'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Wicked Wordplay

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Neologosis


The Washington Post's Style Invitational asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are some inventive winners from a few years back:

Foreploy: any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of obtaining sex.

Fortissimoe: the musical moment produced when someone serially slaps the faces of the first-violin section.

Doltergeist: a spirit that decides to haunt someplace stupid, such as your septic tank.

Sarchasm: the gulf between the author of ironic wit and the recipient who doesn't get it.

Conratemps: the resentment permanent workers feel toward the fill-in workers.

Reintarnation: coming back to life as a hillbilly.

DIOS: the one true operating system.

Inoculatte: to take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis: terminal coolness.

Writer's tramp: a woman who practices poetic licentiousness.

Guillozine: a periodical for executioners.

Osteopornosis: a degenerate disease.

Adulatery: cheating on your wife with a much younger woman who holds you in awe.

Emasculathe: a tool for castration.

Emasculatte: a coffee drink for chemical castration.

Burglesque: a poorly planned break-in. (See: Watergate)

Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like a serious bummer?

Glibido: all talk and no action.

Antifun gal: a prude.

Vaseball: a game of catch played by children in the living room.

Eunouch: the pain of castration.

Hindkerchief: really expensive toilet paper; toilet paper at Buckingham palace.

Deifenestration: to throw all talk of God out the window.

Hozone: the area around 6th street.

Acme: a generic skin disease.

Dopeler effect: the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Hindprint: indentation made by a couch potato.

Intaxication: euphoria at getting a refund from the IRS, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Nazigator: an overbearing member of your carpool.

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Wonderful Words: Part 2'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Wonderful Words 2

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Wonderful Words
Six of the Best: Part 2

Ever wondered why we go on honeymoon or eat sandwiches in the drawing room? Let's look at the fascinating origins of everyday words we never even think about:

steeplechase
originally the name of a horse-race across country where a church steeple was the riders' target

mesmerize
after Franz Mesmer, an Austrian physician who first propounded the theory of 'animal magnetism'

schmuck
of Yiddish origin, in German this means 'jewelry'. It's American English meaning is 'an idiot' or something similar

two-bit
meaning something of little worth or importance, from the days of the Spanish conquistadors back in the 18th century when their dollar was divided into eight 'reals' or bits

ketchup
hotly disputed, but may come from the Chinese kôe-chiap or kê-chiap, meaning 'the brine of pickled fish

attic
plundered from the Greek peninsula Attica, where, apparently, the space under the triangular roofs was being put to good use

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Wonderful Words: Part 2'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Wacky Word Quiz: No.2

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SNAIL: Wacky Word Quiz No.2

No need to deny it: English is W-E-I-R-D. Or is that wierd? I never now. I mean no... err...

And nowhere more so than on the SNAIL Wacky Word Quiz. Enjoy and... LOTS of luck; you'll need it. As I did writing the thing. I hereby lay claim to all errors, mistakes and cock-ups before anyone else tries to take them away from me. Go!





Feel free to leave your comments or queries in the Comments section below. There's no guarantees I'll be able to add anything worthwhile, but your participation is much appreciated all the same.
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The SNAIL

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Wacky Word Quiz: No.2'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

_________________________________________________________________________________

Wonderful Words 1

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Six of the Best: Part 1

Ever wondered why we go on honeymoon or eat sandwiches in the drawing room? Look at the fascinating origins of everyday words we never even think about:

drawing room
used to be the withdrawing room and the ladies did so after dinner so the guys could give each other lung cancer in peace and quiet (and smoke)

funny-bone
said to be a pun on the real name, the humerus, of the bone, or rather the attached nerve, that goes 'twang' when you hit said nerve and of course isn't funny at all

honeymoon
newly-weds used to customarily drink honey wine for the first month (or moon) of their marriage

foolscap
a 'fool's cap' was formerly used as a watermark when producing this size of paper

canter
medieaval pilgrims travelling to Canterbury would usually travel at a pace known as the 'Canterbury gallop', which is a bit less than a gallop

sandwich
after the notorious 4th Earl of S, who allegedly dreamed up the idea to keep him going at the gaming table
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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Lest We Forget'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Lest We Forget

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Lest We Forget

We're all gonna go one day, and when we do, will we know before we go?

In any case, someone will, maybe, if we're lucky, in a manner of speaking, say something about us after the event, with, or indeed without, our consent.

Ultimately, the best bet might be to write our own epitaph, before someone else does it for us (and why not with a bit of humour to boot?)...

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Gone but not Forgotten

This troubled world is sighing now,

The flu is at the door;

And many folks are dying now

Who never died before.
Anon

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On a Dentist

Stranger, approach this spot with gravity:

John Brown is filling his final cavity.
Anon

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On Leslie Moore

Here lies what's left

Of Leslie Moore

No Les

No more.

Anon

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On John Bun

Here lies John Bun;

He was killed by a gun.

His name was not Bun, but Wood;

But Wood would not rhyme with gun,

And Bun would.

Anon
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The SNAIL

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Lest We Forget'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Mensa Is As Mensa Does

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Do You Mensa?

If you look up 'mensa' in the dictionary you get two or three varying definitions.

One is a table-top slab used in weird Roman Catholic rituals.

The second would be a faint constellation in the polar region of the southern hemisphere and containing part of the Large Megallanic Cloud. That would have been my first reaction, obviously.

And the third definition is an international organisation dedicated to passing a so-called 'IQ' test which basically offers the ultimate conclusion that you are good at passing IQ tests. What that says about you as a human being remains fuzzy.

But they generally feel it Means Something.
And this ad (below) is an incitation to join the Australian Mensa club.

I joined the British one once, a long time ago. Which obviously lays me open to accusations of a) partisanship, b) subtle showing off (if you still believe getting a high score in an IQ test has significance), c) deep-inset insecurity (if you don't).

The experience was... edifying. The best of times involved discussing with other Mensans why we would want to belong to such an embarrassingly elitist organisation. The worst of times involved pretentious dickheads who thought they were above everyone else. How wrong they were.

Anyway, here's the ad. I personally found it smile-inducingly funny, but wouldn't take that as evidence that I have an IQ of 150. I've always ridiculed the test as basically testing whether you are good at taking IQ tests. And after I had worked my way through an 'IQ test preparation' book my score instantaneously and miraculously improved by about 20 points.

Ain't self-centredness sweet?

Having said that, I'd love it if people got more of my jokes...

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Thoroughly Thoughtful'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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