sub rosa

Under the rose. Above the dirt. Across the great divide. Beyond the pale. To hell and back. For better or worse. Beside me. Under the rainbow (somewhere). Below standard. From here to eternity. On the brink. To the front. In the back. After the fall. Against all odds. Through thick and thin. Before time immemorial. Despite all evidence to the contrary. Along the watchtower (all). Above the fray. With malice aforethought. Over the top. Without scruples. Among thieves (thick as). In the beginning. During this time. Toward the end. Around the bend. On behalf of. Since forever. At the mercy of. To have and to have not. Under the watchful eye of. From the storm (shelter). Down the rabbit hole. Between you and me. Except us. Within these walls. Upon second thought. Beneath contempt. Up the river. Under the table. Until then. 

taking a knee

A genuflection of reflection. Take one for the team (in this case, the nation, the e pluribus unum). Forgive us our trespasses, chokeholds, tramplings, blindnesses, deafnesses. So we genuflect. On bended knee. Wounded Knee. Forgive us our silences, forgive us our words. Forgive us our comforts. Genuflect symbolically, metaphorically, physically. Bow. Shots fired across the bow. Bow and arrow. Bury my heart. Genuine flection. Yield and you need not break. Flex your muscles. An inflection of speech. The fire next time. A perilous predilection. An election. The elect. Take a knee. On the chin. Break-neck speed. Life and limb. Out on a limb. Leap of faith.

trespasses

forgive us our traipsing, mine and yours, yours and mine; who said we could go there; he she it they them; who had the right, the passport, the visa, to enter such a forbidden land; to transgress; to go beyond; to cross the border; unmapped territory; uncharted waters mostly icebergs; what right; and to expect no consequences beyond the pale, beyond the pale skin; disregard the boundaries, the warnings, the posted signs; to violate; to cross over; beyond the beyond; forgive us ours as we forgive theirs; to leave one zone and enter another; your papers, please; your documents; the fingerprint; facial recognition scan; whatever made us think we could go there; what ever made me think I could escape unscathed

3 hardest words

I was wrong
you were right
we were wrong
they were right
I guessed wrong
thought I knew
had it figured
assumed it was
love or hate
hate or love
won't you try
try I did
we found out
maybe next time
no next time
time passes quickly
long story short
short story shorter
you and me
you and I
we three kings
you three queens
paper or plastic
not like that
is it real
is it over
I feel fine
stop right here

dis-ease

Consider: disease

dis-, as in lack of, not, opposite of, apart, away, asunder, in a different direction, as in two, twice, two different ways, twain, between.

ease, as in mitigate, alleviate, relieve from pain or care, render less difficult, relax one's efforts (including 1863 to 1907, a more specific sense in sailing), to content a woman sexually (slang, 1861), physical comfort, undisturbed state of the body, tranquility, peace of mind, pleasure, well-being, opportunity. Compare adagio. Cf. at ease as a military order denoting freedom from stiffness or formality.

These from the Online Etymology Dictionary. 

Put the two together.

Dis-ease.

Read the above all over again. 

No, I'm not going to walk you through it. I'm not going to sermonize on what breaking down the two word parts means separately or together, or what marrying them conjures up and gives birth to. You can do that yourself.

It's revealing, isn't it?

But, still, add to the mix not at home in the world, nor in your skin, your psyche, nor in your bones.

The etymological and existential tension (infinitely tender and fragile; unspeakably personal) between cling and let go, grasp and avert, indulge and refrain, partake and repel, pause and pirouette, explore and perish.

Why is that?

So much depends. (William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow")

So if you have only a thin wire,
God does not mind.
He will enter your hands
as easily as ten cents used to
bring forth a Coke. (Anne Sexton, "Small Wire") 

skinship

She is Japanese but was in Paris. She is Japanese and speaks some French and some English. In a note to me, she used the word "skinship." We were talking about loneliness. The need for human contact. The need for human touch. When children are undernourished and underweight, not growing according to accepted benchmarks, pediatricians talk of "failure to thrive." Many factors are typically at play. Might emotional starvation via lack of touch be a candidate for causality?

How about adults and their failure to thrive? Many factors are typically at play. The presence of absence. The absence of touch. Skin on skin. Skin to skin.

Skinship.

At first, I thought she had coined this portmanteau word herself by a lovely accident owing to language hybrids and differences. I had thought she had stumbled upon it unconsciously. She said, no, it's a thing; it's a term in Japan; a mash-up of two languages that catches on. Nevertheless, I was arrested, taken by the word and what it evoked, in me. I was, and am, excited by the possibilities the word incites.

Skinship.

Is it the kinship of those who possess skin, or of those who indulge in skinness, in subtle skin-drenched tactility, ("I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch..." Leonard Cohen), or is it the kinship of those parched from touchlessness, arid and brittle, perhaps the kinship of those who ache for skin kinship but have lost the thread of emotional genealogy? Is it a skinny vessel sailing to unseen horizons, a ship with no cargo except the heavy burden of empty skinship?

We don't know.

Reports are sketchy.

Rumors abound.

The Premier President Prince of Skindinavia will be making an official statement on these matters presently.
 

by any other name

Heroin.

Is the word part of the scourge? Is it a swish of the sword?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, Heroin as a word was coined in 1898 in German as a "trademark registered by Friedrich Bayer & Co. for their morphine substitute. According to tradition the word was coined with chemical suffix -ine (2) (German -in) + Greek hērōs 'hero' (see hero (n.1)) because of the euphoric feeling the drug provides, but no evidence for this seems to have been found so far."

So what if the name were changed? No, no, no, we're not talking about the myriad demimonde, street, underworld, pop culture, and user-driven slang terms. Not that. Change the name. A new coinage. A coin of the realm of hypnotic transport and molten reverie.

Do words matter? In ancient times, identity was conferred by the very act of naming. There was a power to it. The Hebrew Bible is rife with examples of this.

What would the new word be?

Could such a word have such powers as to be salutary, salubrious, and beneficent?

And even if that were true, would such a move erase allure? Because after all, danger, menace, and perilous risk are part of the game, part of the ritual, yes?

What would that word be? The opposite of "hero"? Hardly.

As the Bard put it in Romeo and Juliet, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” As if to say, "Call heroin by any other name, and you get the same results."

Is it so? How would we conduct a peer-reviewed study to find out?

In "Sacred Emily" in 1913 (year of my father's birth), Gertrude Stein wrote: "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." (Did you know that in one version of this immortal declaration Stein put it in a children's story, carved on a tree trunk, round and round?) So, does Gertrude Stein side with Shakespeare on this semantic matter, or is she saying, "It's futile; it's beyond description; it is what it is"? (Or something else entirely.)

Heroin is heroin is heroin is heroin. 

What do you think? What do you feel? Tell me more. Especially addicts. Weigh in on this. 

Do words matter?

How much?

first words last words

If words matter, which ones. The infant's inaugural sounds that grown-ups assign warm-hearted meaning to? She said mama! He said mama!? Hear it? No. Yeah. They said dada! They said momma dada nana poppa sissy bruth cuz booboo coocoo. Or maybe it was really a smart-aleck bit of gibberish that only the baby understood. Or a Dadaist manifesto. Try: gimme gimme love gimme love more love gimme shelter gimme more attention gimme dryness milk food more more now now quicker. 

And last words. Will they be an aphorism, an epigram, a saying that all by the bedside can later quote. Words bronzed in your heart, branded into memory. A word or phrase tinged with wisdom, bitterness, humor, irony, brilliance, mysticism, holiness, profanity, vulgarity, vanity, regret, gratitude, humility, pride, inspiration. Love. Generosity. Surrender. Personality. Or something else. Or else nothing. The long metallic note the roshi sounds at the end of the meditation session. The aural pebble in the oceanic roar, echoing infinitely into indescribable ineffable silence. Last words. (Google them. Good search topic. If Google even exists then. If AI has not replaced human or humanoid speech.)

What about between the two, what about the myriad or myriads times millions of words spoken (or merely imagined) between that alpha and this omega, between the first terminus and the last, between the first gurgled garbled mewlings, the oral scribblings and doodlings, at the departing station and the broken mumblings, screams, or ringing emptiness sounded at the last stop, the train's brakes screeching to a halt, the steam billowing upward, a stock movie scene. What about all those words, between A and Z (or whatever your language's alphabet begins and ends with, or whatever your private idiosyncratic memory consists of). The unimaginable flood of syllables strewn, streamed, leaked, and hurled, secreted or sworded, all untakebackable.

First words.

Last words.

In-between words.

 

academy awards

The American Academy of Lexicographical Propriety and Rectitude hereby announces its inaugural list of American words to be purged, disappeared, nulled, sidelined, or silenced.

Roughly modeled on France's Académie française, which was founded in 1635 and is composed of 40 members, or "immortals," AALPR monitors, documents, and seeks to influence the use, both written and oral, of American English in both the English-speaking world and beyond. Although some of its members — the identities and number are a closely guarded secret — have lobbied for powers akin to a verbal guillotine, the organization wields no formal, or informal, enforcement powers, no matter how sharp its verbo-judicial blade.

Despite the cautions and warnings of linguists, lexicographers, academicians, misanthropologists et al., the Academy doggedly (yet not caninely) presses forward in its privilege-laden, quixotic quest to distill, filter, purify, purge, or protect the Mother/Father Tongue.

The Academy's charter limits the number of words for each year's list. Applying an arcane algorithm of astrological coordinates and geomagnetic metaphysical pulses, a maximum of nine words are allowed for banishment and eternal destruction.

To wit:

impact (v.)/impactful (adj.)

millennial

adulting

Kardashian

efforting

utilize

hack (n.)

empower (v.)/empowerment (n.)

bougie

Contradicting the judgmental "obliterate me" nature of the aforementioned word list, the Academy nevertheless recognizes the fluid, organic nature of language and invites readers to amend, rectify, posit, deposit, or edit the Academy's selections. Furthermore, nominations are open for 2020.

quote unquote exciting

I strolled into my bank. "My" is undeserving of this application of a personal pronoun. The article "the" is apt in this context that is being built one verbal brick at a time. When this institution was a credit union, when I joined it in 1990, "my" would be literally and figuratively correct. But that was then. (I don't have to tell you we live in radically different times. Even if you hear someone lament the externals of these times, you can't commonsensically conclude whose side they are on: the uncivil, invidious xenophobes or the unmoored, vexed communitarians [moi].) 

Back to my bank stroll. 

I glide through the lobby, a boulevardier without portfolio, a citizen of the commonwealth (as if our wealth were common!). Absent any forethought, I ease into one of the cozy faux-leather chairs arranged away from the tellers, a distance from the glassed, venetian-blinded offices of "associates." The armed chairs (meaning they had armrests not weaponry) were in a tight circle around a nonexistent bonfire, adjacent to a Keurig with coffee pods, creamer, sugar, stirrers, all of this free stuff intended to enhance the customer experience, to welcome bank customers and prospects, or bank customers' or prospects' friends or relatives awaiting the financial-task-performer's task completion. Granted, the chairs might potentially host a waiting retinue attending to latter-day Bonnies and Clydes or Jesse Jameses, their thumbs gliding on "devices" in order to share strategic get-away info. (But why would they be so foolish or risky? Today's thieves silently hack, 24/7, invisible even to the rest of the household above the Mountain Dew-empties-littered room in the basement illuminated only by a nest of computer screens.) Do not so breezily dismiss this heist theory: at the entrance, the bank warns entrants against wearing hats or sunglasses for this very reason. Really? How retro!

As I said, I plop down on the tawny-cream vinyl waiting-room-decor chair. I figure I'd complete a text or two before entering the line (no waiting line evident, actually) to "do my business." Being old, I am an agonizingly slow texter, using my (not "the") index finger, not my thumbs, which anyone under 40 does, which is agonizing for millennials et al. to observe. Drives them nuts.

No hurry.

A flaneur not in France. 

An associate pops out of her office, her face barely disguising worry and urgency.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asks in the international language of officialese.

Insouciantly (to continue the français theme), I reply, "No, I'm fine."

If I could've, comfortably attired in my paisley smoking jacket, sans chapeau, I'd've lit a cigar, tossed the wooden match, and asked her for an espresso.

I continue my dilatory digital dalliance on my device.

Within minutes, another associate pops out of her office, next-door to the office of the aforementioned associate.

"May I help you, sir?"

Your poseur-narrator, a former English teacher and retired editor, appreciates her understanding of the distinction between "can" and "may."

However, for this gadabout, the word "sir" in her query is jarring, off-putting. Why? Three, maybe many more, times this associate and I have interacted professionally at the (not "my") bank. She has answered my queries, helped me perform the proper paperwork, seen my signature affixed, and secured a financial instrument or two for me.

Sir?

You don't remember my name, or if not my name my visage, or if not my name or face my signature if I show it to you?

Without hard evidence and with a dollop of imagination, I conclude the two bank associates see me as a threat, an indolent idler casing the joint. A would-be John Dillinger or "Pretty Boy" Floyd in-waiting. (Pawlie Kokonuts does have a certain criminal panache, don't you agree?) 

Some welcome, Keurig and all.

This institution boasts the slogan "America's Most Exciting Bank," a curious tagline given that a tsunami is at least as exciting as a wedding; given that a once-in-a-lifetime stock market plunge is at least as exciting as a World Cup victory.

Despite my insouciance, was I too exciting with regard to Financial Institution Security Heistiness (FISH)?

May I help you, sir?

"No, I'm fine. Thank you," I replied avec un sourire anglais.

rescue mission

On a mission to rescue. Recuse from abuse. Rescue me. Fontella Bass. Fontanelles des belles. Rescue thee. Rescue we. Protect deliver free. Free delivery is never free. Litany of loss and mercy. Loss of loss equals gain of what. Return on investment. Rescue me. Rescue you them it. Who rescues whom. Who rescues what when where. Holy mother protector. Deliver us from evil, and good too. Father mother protector, cradle our limbs. Angel baby brother sister, set us free. Rescue mission: sleepers awake dawn upon us. Missionary position: prostrate in prayer. Rescue mission positions: swoop or swoon; sink or swim. Litany of dolor and dulcet notes. Rescue rescued dog and dyslexia. Salve of saving: lend a hand give a heart. Surrender to win. Susurrus wind. Swarming swamis swimming ashore. Rescuing rescued multitudes one and all. Who does what to whom how when where why. Any reason to rescue no excuses no questions asked. No answers lost. On divine letterhead humans inscribed.

the play's the thing . . .

Play it as it lies. Lays, if you will. Play Layla, the long version, of longing, if you please. The play's the thing wherein we'll catch the conscience of the king. Play the cards you're dealt. A pair of queens. Royal straight. Royal gay. Royal blue. Play it as is. Plebeian. No overplay, excess, much, more, most. Play your hand, not heavy-handed, ham-fisted, handcuffed. No superlatives, nor absolutes. Try the comparative, for wiggle room, for loopholes, for breathing space. Infinitives. Imperatives. Let it go. Let it be. The be-all and end-all. Is what it is. No more, no less. Just this. Just now.

Blind Person Area

Take a deep cleansing breath.  

Before you get riled up, I'm not "against" blind people, deaf persons, disabled children or adults, or anyone who faces physical or mental challenges. Who would be? As you likely know, the vocabulary we use to describe people and their limitations is open to question and controversy. That's why I hesitated typing "disabled" above. I am not acquainted with all the verbal alternatives, such as "typical" versus "atypical." (And because my Attention Surplus Disorder [ASD]-addled mind will otherwise forget, let me observe in passing: Have you ever seen a traffic sign cautioning drivers with respect to someone with mental health issues? Why not? Isn't that a statement in itself, relegating mental health to a level less important than physical health? Chew on that one before proceeding.)

But these semantic distinctions are not my main topic here, though I frequently noodle notions about words and their use, misuse, and connotations, inadvertent or otherwise.

So what is my main topic?

Slice of life. Slices of life.

Signs of life.

Just slicing away for you and me to examine.

Such as:

I was driving around and saw a BLIND PERSON AREA traffic sign. It occurred to me that I have never encountered a blind person in one of those traffic-sign-designated areas. Not yet. I might tomorrow. Same with a DEAF PERSON AREA. I have yet to encounter a hearing-impaired person in the vicinity of a sign advising me of same. But how would I know? Perhaps I have. (And why should I know?)

Have you?

If so, what are we required to do? Presumably, the sign is advising drivers to slow down, but it doesn't say that. And presumably it is asking drivers to be more alert.

Fair enough.

Believe it or not, the signs themselves have stirred controversy. For example, in 2007 the issue of whether to put up a DEAF CHILD AREA sign in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, stirred up the local citizenry. Some argue that such signs are not necessary, that they reinforce stereotypes regarding limitations. Traffic sign engineers assert that the signs diminish in effectiveness over time. (Couldn't you say that as well for the ubiquitous STOP sign? I've written about this before.)

Again, as stated in my introductory disclaimer, I mean no disrespect to anyone with special needs. However, I would wager that the definition of special needs could withstand some stretching, twisting, and pulling. With that in mind, consider some signs we do not have but might consider, for better or worse:

WARNING: ACTIVE ADDICTION ZONE (Don't stereotype as to where you might plant this sign. It could be anywhere.)

CAUTION: ALCOHOLICS AT PLAY (Imagine the ruckus bar owners would raise if these were sprinkled in their environs.)

DOMESTIC TURMOIL AHEAD (Placement would be based on the number of disturbance calls to authorities, or determined by the number of pink flamingos or ceramic trolls on the lawn.)

ABJECT POVERTY (Insert your own dang comments.)

SICKENING WEALTH

JUNK FOOD FLOOD

CAVIAR SURPLUS

BOUGIE

DO NOT ENTER: ENTITLEMENT ZONE 

EGOCENTRIC ZONE

DON'T YIELD

DIVIDED HIGHWAY — AND MORE!

COMPROMISE

TATTOOS

LITTER ZONE

YOUR TURN

the notable sauvage

Does etymology determine destiny? 

I have taken a liking to the new fragrance Sauvage by Dior. I sampled it at Lord & Taylor, where I've gotten friendly with Gaylord, at the men's fragrance counter. After wearing (does one truly "wear" a fragrance? Or does it wear you? Isn't more like you unwear it, one molecule at a time?) sample spritzes, I received favorable responses from strangers and familiars alike, as in: "Oh. What is that you're wearing?" Or, "You smell nice." Or, "I like it. It's you." Admittedly, my coltish impatience sometimes takes the impolitic form of forwardly inquiring, "How do you like the way I smell?" which defeats the whole notion of pheromone subtlety or sophistication. Oh well. So be it. C'est moi. Noblesse oblige.  

Sauvage is described by its makers as "[a]t once refined yet untamed," along with a lush landscape of other-wordly flowers and forests and fauna (such as wolves in the night). As with wines or coffees or teas, fragrances embrace arcane and evocative vernaculars. As a copywriter, I would love the daunting challenge of bringing a fragrance to life by a marriage of word and image. Anyway, it's too late for that. The folks at Dior have already delivered a scintillating bouquet of sensual syllables and smoldering images.

Before I go any further, allow me this disclaimer: Dior didn't put me up to this. I'm not in the habit of crafting product endorsements. Dior isn't paying me. They've never heard of me. But it's my story. I needed and wanted something to write about, and this is what popped into my head via my personal olfactory highway.

Wearing the fragrance prompted me to look up the French word "sauvage" and to meander etymologically, which I like to do, as you know, if you've ever read anything at all here.

I discovered "sauvage" is employed in the wine business. But that's not what drew me to it. I further learned that adjectives such as wild, untamed, natural, earthy, unspoiled, fierce, ferocious, indomitable, valiant, sylvan, primitive, unauthorized, and savage emanate from this word's web of wonder and enchantment. You can imagine why the copywriters and perfume artisans might applaud the allure of these words as they adhere to and then float off of the printed page or webpage -- most importantly, if these words, and unnameable others, transmit pulsing hums of desire to anyone under their invisible halo.

Would knowing the etymology of sauvage all by itself lead me to it, even absent its aromas?

I don't know. I'm not out of the woods yet on that one. 

plus one

Plus One

The first time I heard the term I was confused. My friend seemed to be using it solely in a business context.

“Would you care to be my plus one at dinner Friday? My company is hosting this ritzy affair,” he asked an attractive female mutual friend. I was overhearing the dialogue, so I did not pay it much mind.

Not having heard of “plus one,” I assumed by the context that it was a sales term. I figured it meant something like this translated into non-drummer, non-sales-quota jargon (which had briefly been my world in the Eighties), “Would you please, please pose as my Number One sales prospect worth $23,500 in potential weekly revenue at dinner Friday? Because most of my prospects in real life are minus one, or minus one to the tenth, but don’t tell my sales manager.”

That explains why my sales career was of brief duration. If the company enforced the draw against advance they claimed I owed, I’d be a shackled indentured servant to this day, decades later.

Plus one.

I took it as code for elite. Like “A Team And Then Some.”

For those of you among the cultural cognoscenti, you already know plus one refers to a friend, date, companion, or, um, escort, that one brings to an event if you are the invited guest. Some sources say it dates to 2004. Don’t upbraid me for living under a cultural rock. I don’t get out all that much.

It comes from the format that guest lists or invitations employ: Jane Doe + 1. It serves a number of social purposes, some of them awkward. It allows a host to invite exactly one half of a couple. Why? Who knows. Reasons abound. The couple may be openly on the verge of fracturing, or in an open relationship. One member of the couple might be serving time in the big house or in rehab or undergoing a transition that is still unacknowledged. In plain English, maybe the inviter(s) just don’t like one member of the couple and never did. This affords an excellent opportunity to prevent the drunken, wild boor from wrecking the event.

Then, of course, there’s the lonelyhearts angle. This demographic would bristle at being a plus one. For them, it would be an embarrassing admission of authenticity, independence, self-gratification, and the inexplicable absence of co-dependent misery, signified by a scarlet letter “S,” for solitude. The shame! Alternatively, others would jump at the chance to be a plus one, roaming socially unfettered at the event in question. Besides, being a guest of a guest might hold the promise of the tables being turned at the next social event requiring invitations.

From a purely monetary or practical standpoint, the role of plus one offers the chance to enjoy a free meal — and more! (as direct-mail advertisements vaguely enthuse). The “and more!” might mean anything from new friends to life partners — or new chances at co-dependence or relationship failure. Seen in this light, the decision to be a plus one, or not, is laden with limitless permutations, a cosmic rolling of the social dice.

One side of you might say: “Go for it!” while your other self says: “Are you freaking crazy?”

Devil or angel.

So now I know. Plus one does not refer to sales tactics, clothing size, fertility methods, supersized drinks, erectile dysfunction solutions, threesomes, or unexplored spiritual dimensions. (Disclaimer: Any reference to any real product, trademark, entity, or proprietary method is purely unintentional and coincidental.)

Happy plus-one-ing!

The Embarrassment Manifesto

I am embarrassed. I have become embarrassed. I am embarrassing. Switch pronouns. We are embarrassed. We have become embarrassed. We are embarrassing. We are being embarrassed. We are an embarrassment. "We" here stands for the Disunited States of America. The good ol' DSA. What is it to be embarrassed? Embarrass: "to perplex, throw into doubt." The estimable Online Etymology Dictionary tells us "embarrass" comes to us from the French, meaning "to block," which came to us from the Italian "to bar," which came from Latin. Embarrass came to mean "to hamper, hinder," and then later "make (someone) feel awkward." Other meanings over the centuries have even included "mental state of unease." With this FACTUAL word history in mind, no matter where you perch on today's razored fence of political discourse, you cannot deny the reality of embarrassment. Whether you lament it or celebrate, it is here. The Age of Embarrassment. Whether you are on the barricades or hiding from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [Embarrassment] (ICE), welcome to Embarrassmentville. "Welcome" is hereby spelled e-m-b-a-r-r-a-s-s by edict of Embarrassing Executive Order No. 001. So, get used to it, boys and girls -- and anyone in-between or off the charts. Get used to a state of being perplexed, doubtful, blocked, barred, hampered, or hindered. Get used to feeling awkward and ill at ease. Get used to being embarrassed or making others feel embarrassed. Please show your Embarrassment Visa on the way out the door.

 

 

cone of uncertainty

The projected paths of hurricanes are surely not the only examples of a "cone of uncertainty." We are born (and borne) through and into a cone of uncertainty. Our cone of uncertainty encompasses the all-direction maze of life, death, and all stations in between those two terminals. Uncertainty about meaning, lack of meaning, direction, no direction, beginning, middle, end -- it's all there, entwined by faith or fear into a conical conundrum, comedic or tragic -- take your pick.

desire, thy name is . . .

Sprout Pharmaceuticals got FDA approval for its libido-boosting pill for women, called Addyi. As with many pharmaceuticals, it is controversial, in this case exposing two opposing lines of thought about the need for the drug and questions about its safety and efficacy. I'll dodge that debate. I'm not qualified to engage in it, for a multitude of reasons.

But I am qualified to engage in verbal foreplay. Or is it syllabic role-play? Anyway, is it vaguely possibly that the pharma pholks considered, and rejected, any of these names for their new product?

Attagirl

Attaboy

Loveya

Likeya

Friendme

Pantpurrgo

Screamy

Warmup

Myagra

Empowerglo

You can see why these were not selected. Suppy your own in the comments, if you dare.

(Incidentally, what do you think of Sprout Pharmaceuticals? What other industries is Sprout in? Seeds? hedge funds? fertility clinics? turf? irrigation? fertilizer? vitamins?)

p.s. The generic name is flibanserin. Play with that one, too, wordsmitherers.

reverse mortgages -- and more!

I saw a sign today that said REVERSE MORTGAGES. I barely know what that means; maybe the bank pays you. Probably not. I guess it has to do with borrowing against your equity. Of course, it got me to musing on the semantic possibilities. How about these?

REVERSE MARRIAGE -- separation or divorce.

REVERSE CONFESSION -- the priest tells you his sins.

REVERSE HIRING -- firing.

REVERSE WINNING -- losing.

REVERSE VIRGINITY -- [it doesn't work that way]

REVERSE SAVINGS -- spending.

REVERSE HOMER -- strikeout.

word of the day

Today, Merriam-Webster selected "youthquake" as its Word of the Day:

(Is "Word of the Day" a proprietary term?)

Here's what Merriam-Webster posted:

youthquake

June 08, 2015

noun

\YOOTH-kwayk\

Definition

: a shift in cultural norms influenced by the values, tastes, and mores of young people

. . . which prompts these from me:

oldquake: Baby Boomers' anxiety over their retirement accounts 

slimquake: distress over the amount of one's caloric intake

heftquake: Ibid.

sexquake: performance anxiety

WASPquake: can you wear white pants after Labor Day?

cakequake: Op. cit.  

alcquake: the morning after

billquake: You got this? No? Really? 

agnostiquake: OMG. What if there really is a hell?

datequake: What if she/he/? doesn't like me, or vice versa?

ratequake: The Federal Reserve -- and Wall Street's biggest fear

votequake: The seismic shock to American democracy if more than 80% of eligible voters actually, well, voted