I began this morning with my usual cup of coffee and the word redumbant. You won’t find that word in the dictionary because I made it up only two hours ago, but it should have existed for eons. The need for it stretches back through the misty past to the day when some caveman scrawled the first stick figures on the walls of his grotto. His wife looked at them and thought, You could have said the same thing with a third as many sticks. And it would still be dumb.
So you can see that redumbant is a mighty useful word. And since one good word begets another,* I’ve hatched a few more to keep it company. Editors will nod their heads gratefully, and writers will either thank me or curse me. I doubt either of them will shower me with precious stones, but that’s okay. It’s enough to know I’ve made my own small but useful contribution to the literary lexicon.
Astoprophe: An apostrophe that is placed, through some arcane logic, where no apostrophe belong’s. Stop it, okay? Just stop.
Redumbant: Saying something really stupid over and over in different ways.
Ellipsiiiiiiiiis: Similar to the standard three-point ellipsis, except with a whole lot more dots and frequently used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . for no apparent reason.
Parenthecease: The discipline of not glibly inserting a parenthesis to clarify a poorly worded sentence, but of refining the sentence instead.
Grammar: Your mom’s or dad’s mother. What, that’s not what you meant? Well, your spell-checker ain’t perfect, you know.
Iyellics: Italics used so liberally that readers get the impression you’re constantly shouting, and they tune you out. Ssshhh! Pretend you’re in the library. Now, what was that you were saying?
Quon’t Marks: Indistinguishable in appearance from both single and double quotes, quon’t marks are properly “used” where they “don’t” belong; that is, their correct usage requires their misuse. Quon’ts are “commonly” found on gas station signage, in Craigslist “ads,” and on music store bulletin boards, frequently in “combination” with astoprophes.
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* Not really, but for the sake of this post, let’s say so.