Month: August 2003

vocabulary

Wordplay

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Each year the Washington Post’s Style Invitational asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing only one letter and supply a new definition. Here are the 2002 winners:

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

Giraffiti: Vandalism painted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit).

Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly. And, the overall winner of the Washington Post’s Style Invitational:

Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole

ramblings

Life is a Day

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Life is a day that lies between two nights — the night of “not yet,” before birth, and the night of “no more,” after death. That day may be overcast with pain and frustration, or bright with warmth and contentment. But, inevitably, the night of death must arrive.

Death is a night that lies between two days — the day of life on earth and the day of eternal life in the world to come. That night may come suddenly, in the blink of an eye, or it may come gradually, with a slowly receding sun.

As the day of life is an interlude, so is the night of death an interlude. As the day inevitably proceeds to dusk, so does the darkness inevitably proceed to dawn.

Each portion — the foetal existence, and life, and death, and eternal life — is separated by a veil which human understanding cannot pierce.

— excerpt from The Jewish Way of Death and Mourning by Maurice Lamm