Wednesday Word Snoot: Silly Words

Courtesy of Graphican.com

You may remember that during the run-up to election 2012, Mitt Romney accused Barack Obama of using "silly word games." I half-heard that news report and what I heard was "silly words."  That set off a train of thought that ended, as many of my trains of thought do, with a spot of Googling. (Search engines are the best thing to happen to procrastination since ... crossword puzzles. You can waste a lot of time Googling, as with completing crossword puzzles, but you almost always learn something.)
Who knew there was a linguist who's compiled a list of the "100 Silliest Words in English?"  Check it out here.  My favorite is "bloviate," which means to speak pompously or brag. Some of the words on the list are actually phrases, but let us not split hairs.
Writer's Digest has compiled a list of funny words to help writers write funnier stories. I'm not sure I see the innate hilarity of words like "bulgur" and "knickers," but a fair number of the words on the list not only sound funny but have obscure definitions (which they don't give, I guess assuming that writers will know what they mean). And extra points to you if you know what a "bumfuzzle" is. (If you don't, check it out at dictionary dot com.
Wikipedia has an entry on "Inherently funny words" that's extremely academic but has some interesting pop culture references, including one to a Star Trek: Next Generation episode where Joe Piscopo tells Commander Data that words ending in K are always funny.
But if you want to know what words are really inherently funny, it's best to have a little kid around. If you find them repeating a word or phrase, it's going to be because it tickled their fancy. (My sister, for reasons unknown to the rest of the family, thought the name "Gene Siskel" was hilarious and was prone to using it to punctuate sentences when she was a little girl.) Dr. Seuss was the master of silly words, and his word "grinch" is now a permanent part of the lexicon.
Wouldn't you love to invent a silly word that got adopted by everyone?

Worst advertising slogan ever?

Writing snappy advertising copy is not easy. I've done some copywriting in my day and was spectacularly mediocre at it. But honest to God--Charmin toilet paper (I refuse to say "bath tissue") seems to have hit a spectacular low point with their new campaign featuring a family of blue bears that just love how soft it is.  "Everybody's got to go," one of the bears says, and then the announcer comes in. "Enjoy the go."
Seriously? "Enjoy the go?"
I know I'm the girl who was talking about being inspired to write a story by the contents of my cat's litter box, but eeeeeuuuuuuw.  check out Charmin's home page for coupons.

Eiffel Tower Slide Show on Huffington Post

Who doesn't enjoy looking at photographs of the iconic Parisian landmark? Huff Post has a new slide show of Eiffel Tower photos leading off with one of the Tower overlooking a very snowy plaza. Enjoy them here.

Annika Bengtzon Crime Reporter

Is anyone else watching this? It's a Swedish television show based on the novels by Liza Marklund about a crime reporter named Annika Bengtzon. Marklund is a crime reporter herself and also the co-owner of one of the largest publishing houses in Sweden.
Annika Bengtzon one of the projects from Yellow Bird, which a couple of years ago bought up a slew of Nordic Noir novels to make into movies and television shows.
It stars Malin Crepin as the title character who balances a career with a home life that includes a social climbing boyfriend and two young children. (In the first episode, "Nobel's Last Will," one of the subplots involves bullying and Annika's solution to the problem horrifies her partner but is absolutely satisfying.)
The material is not as dark--at least not so far--as most Nordic Noir stories. which is good because sometimes you just don't want to be left in the dark.
You can watch Annika Bengtzon Crime Reporter on Netflix.

Where do you get your ideas?

I'm always curious about how writers come up with their stories--one reason I really enjoy "How I Came to Write This Story" over at Patti Abbott's blog. Most of the time when I come up with an idea it's because of some sort of collision between something I've read or seen on TV and something that has happened in my daily life.
Right now, I'm writing a story called "Failure to Communicate." It's about a crazy cat lady that thinks her cat is sending her secret messages via the cat box.
The idea came to me one morning as I cleaned up after the cat and found a perfect letter L left for me in the cat sand. Eeeewwww. 
Nothing is ever wasted.

Word Snoot Wednesday

I did a lot of book-clearing over the holidays and one of the books I found tucked away was a very old copy of Poplollies and Bellibones, a collection of "lost words" and their meanings by Susan Kelz Sperling.
Poplolly, by the way, is not a backwards way to say "lollipop" but is an old-fashioned term of endearment, like "poppet." If you are, like me, a word snoot who enjoys unusual words, you should check the book out. It's available new for less than $5 and used for a penny and postage.

Happy Inauguration Day! Happy MLK Day!

This terrific image is from Nikkolas and Nicole Smith and pretty much says it all.