Umpteen

As I was saying yesterday before Doug Henning (whoa, what kind of DNA train-wreck resulted in that guy? He looks and acts like somebody dumped some concoction of two parts moonshine to three parts beaver adrenal gland fluid into a Chia Pet and left it to marinate under a strobe light all winter) completely usurped the proceedings, in short, numbers people have little imagination. Words people thrive on it. Case in point, the great word umpteen and its spin-off umpteenth.

In my laborious minutes of extensive clicking research, I discovered that umpteen(th), meaning too many of something, or an unspecified number of something, seems to have come about only around 1910-1920. At first I was disappointed that it wasn't derived from a Norse word, because there's nothing like the thrill of slinging some big word at people, have them say, "Hunh?" and dismissively say, "Oh, that's an old Norse word." Makes them sit up and take notice a bit. But no, the best the experts can say is that the word umpteen(th) came about from the slang word/sound for the Morse Code dash, (h)ump(ty). I kind of like that for a couple reasons. First, it proves my point about the creativity of words vs. numbers (when was the last time someone said, "where did that number come from?"--not the specific number but the word signifying the number) and also because who uses Morse Code anymore? We know SOS and that's about it. But now everytime you say the word umpteen(th) you can bow in homage to the obsolete telegraph.

And the whole point of this is to get you to do just that: use the word umpteen(th) as much as you can, umpteen times, if you will, in your daily conversation. It's just too personable a word to neglect. But because words, unlike numbers, are so flexible, I think we spitoutyourgummers can nudge a few more meanings for umpteen(th) into the public discourse. For instance, why not use the word for a specific number of your choosing? I toyed with substituting it for 72 myself, but decided instead to create my own specific number, between seventeen and eighteen. I realize this seems like a bit of a cop out, what with the whole "teen" thing, but I just love my new sequence of sixteen, seventeen, umpteen, eighteen, nineteen. Roll that around your tongue some and tell me that umpteen, eighteen doesn't have a nice horsey-bounce rhythm to it. Okay, since now I've designated umpteen as a specific number in my digital world, all I have to do is start using it. At the cash register I'll tell people their total comes to twenty-three dollars and umpteen cents. At the drive-thru every morning when I order coffee, and they always ask me how many cream and sugars "with that," instead of my usual vacillating between saying "zero" when I'm in one of my precise, focused, on-the-ball, isn't-the-world-so-mathematically-joyous moods, or saying "none" when I'm in one of my desultory, tinge-of-nihilism moods, I will just say, "seven creams and umpteen sugars, please." Slowly but surely, the movement will pick up steam.

Beyond using umpteen for a specific number, I think there are some other meanings we can apply to umpteen(th) that make complete sense and should speed up the widespread, um, spread of the word. Certainly any adult who hasn't quite left adolescence behind can readily be called an umpteener, as in, "Hey you, umpteener, when are you gonna move out of the basement? By the way, the bottle of Rogaine and the umpteen comic books come to sixty-seven dollars and umpteen cents." Fans of perennial loser sports teams (I mean you, Clevelanders) can stop whining the age-old "wait 'til next year" and can just grouse "Umpteen! Umpteen! Umpteen" when their teams are mathematically eliminated from the championship each year. If you, like me, never got into the whole "talk to the hand" thing (with accompanying gesture) when somebody was yammering/whining too much, just cut them off with a curt, "umpteen." They'll get the message soon enough. The possibilities are umpteenable. Think of the opportunities for people in other creative fields, such as the graphic, culinary, and booze arts. If Prince can come up with the crazy symbol to represent himself, I want to see what a competition of the greatest graphic artists can do coming up with a symbol for umpteen. Imagine a pastry chef given the challenge of concocting a dessert called Umpteenth. See what a bartender will do when you order an Umpteen.

Don't let me limit you. I am here only to spark, not to scorch. Come up with your own uses for umpteen(th) so we can declare emancipation from the numbers tyrants and allow freedom to reign in the world of numbers, at last. As a bonus, for the first umpteen people who respond with appropriate uses for umpteen(th), I will insist to Oprah that you accompany me to her show when she gets around to jumping on the bandwagon. The year 20umpteen (see how we need that symbol?) would be my guess.

The Feelies-Too Much