Going Batty

Fiberglass bat.

In editing a document the other day, I learned not a new word itself but a new (for me) meaning for it, which lexicographers call a new sense. When you think of fiberglass bat, you probably think of a tool of trade for a baseball or softball player. (I prefer the old-fashioned wooden bats, like Willie Mays's Adirondack Slugger, which was made in Dolgeville, New York.) (Did you know Fiberglas is a registered trademark of Owens Corning?) (And did you also know that the catcher's equipment is called the tools of ignorance, unfairly?)

But I learned that fiberglass bat has, for me, the unexpected sense of some type of roof or ceiling insulation.

Which got me to thinking.

Although our language is rich because of new layers of meanings for old words, like sand accumulating on a shore, perhaps we have not sufficiently tapped the humorous possibilities of same. (The Laughorist should never stray too far from his brand.)

We already have words such as invaginate. But why not penilize? As in, oh, I don't know, "stiffen with resolve" or "empower" or "act impetuously and driven by testosterone." (Stop. Calm down. I know I'm taking linguistic liberties [LLs].)

I'll posit (there's a pinkies-out word of Academe for you) a few more, with the full understanding that your Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is rife with these, rife for the picking.

diction -- pickup lines uttered by a male at a bar.

faction -- the act of positing something to be true, which becomes accepted as true in the popular imagination, despite evidence to the contrary.

insipid -- an unintended or subconscious hint of naughtiness or nastiness.

Others welcome.