LexiDan

No, it's not some new anti-depressant to take after you encounter me. It's merely a list of words I've coined but as of yet have not earned me any coin. I guess The Washington Post has some new word contest every year, which people have sent me, but I've never figured out to enter the thing. I'd like to think that my real inspiration comes from the comedian Rich Hall and his "sniglets"--words that aren't in any dictionary but should be.

You'd think that with the thousands and thousands of words in the English language, we writers and speakers would be satisfied, but there are just some situations, some people, some things, that scream out for their own word. Here are a few. Feel free to make rampant use of them in your various verbal activities. DISCLAIMER: I thought up all of these on my own, though some seem so obvious to me, it wouldn't surprise me if someone else has come up with them too. So I claim originality, if not the out and out invention.

Urinag—the guy next to you in a public restroom who tries to strike up a conversation

Juru—a Hasidic sage

Emailciate—to delete all the unwanted e-mail in your in-box

Harmalade—preserves left in the refrigerator long past the expiration date

Curmidgeon—a cantankerous gnatlike fly

Reggaelic—a genre of music enjoyed by Jamaican-Irish

Sexpulsion—the effect of one partner’s headache upon the other

Handicarp—to complain about inadequate wheelchair-accessibility

Margrinal—a hint of a smile

Bigrate—to drift away from one’s assumed sexual preference

Slavatory—a public restroom in Belgrade

Punsy—a wimp who likes word jokes

Parashut—certain death

Philostophy—all that cool stuff you learned in an intro to philosophy course, which you now can’t remember

Laborastory—a tedious, tall tale about white rats and Bunsen burners

Bigloo—an Eskimo king’s bathroom

Transvestithe—to make regular payments to the local cross-dresser

Portfoldio—your stocks, after the market crashes/d

Merlout—a sophisticated wino

Sloquacious—what you call a stutterer who won’t shut up

Smutiny—a rebellion on the porno set

Marianne Faithfull-Broken English

R.I.P. Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll-Tiny Tortures