High-Heeled Bowling Shoes

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Christmas, editing, grammar, holiday, humor, proofreading, proper grammar, shopping, strange word, writing

I stopped at the credit union the other day to withdraw some money for Christmas presents. To entertain customers while they waited, the credit union installed a television behind the tellers’ counter.

Screen after screen displayed fun Christmas facts. One said that if we were to buy the original gifts from “The 12 Days of Christmas,” song today, it would set us back a whopping $107,000. That’s a big holiday budget!

At this time of year, retailers are having a field day – I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotten many emails with subject lines like “The 12 Gifts of Christmas,” all designed to send me dashing back to the credit union for more wads of cash to buy  whatever’s being sold.

It reminded me of a word I came across recently: emacity. This obscure word relates to a fondness for buying things. Thanks to my handy dandy Latin dictionary, I learned that emacity has Latin roots, from “emo” meaning “to buy or purchase.”

Emacity isn’t a word we use often; despite that, we act as if we know just what it means. According to one source, 2012 holiday spending in the United States has already reached $27 billion! Yowza!

And with the media showing clips of shoppers camped out for days in front of Target and Best Buy, waiting for the doors to open on great markdowns inside, it’s really no wonder we’ve attained such crazed levels of emacity.

Nellie’s emacity reached a fevered pitch at the Spare Me Bowling Shop. She mowed over store signs and plowed past shoppers in her zeal to buy nine pairs of high-heeled bowling shoes.

Whoa, Nellie! She might want to check out “One Cent at a Time,” a neat blog that discusses a different definition of what it means to be rich. You don’t need to sell your belongings and live in a pup tent along the highway to achieve this; rather, ask yourself how you’re already rich and what you’re thankful for. I’ll bet it isn’t anything that money can buy, and if that’s the case, I’m really happy for you.

retrothing.com

So…whether you simply must have another pair of stylin’ bowling shoes, or feel the need to go on a shopping frenzy of another kind, keep a quote from Ben Franklin in mind:

“Rather go to bed without dinner than rise to debt.”

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Weird Word Wednesday!

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colonists, copywriting, editing, farctate, grammar, history, holiday, humor, president, proofreading, proper grammar, strange word, stuffing, Thanksgiving, turkey, weird word, words, writing

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It’s Weird Word Wednesday! For those of you still stuck at work, take heart – tomorrow we celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States, when most of us get a  day off work to celebrate the hours-long foodathon. Some of us even get an extra day off to recuperate!

Thanksgiving itself originated with the first settlers. In 1621, Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians gathered for a harvest meal, one much different from the turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pie of our current feast. Instead, they probably dined on, among other things, venison, squash, corn, grapes and berries.

The tradition of a meal held in thanksgiving continued for decades, and in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared a national Thanksgiving Day, held each November.

While most Thanksgiving revelers might not know today’s Weird Word, they’ll certainly feel its effect after they push their chairs away from the table!

Our word is farctate. It means “stuffed; overfilled,” or “filled to capacity.”

It’s also fun to say! The “c” is hard, and the word is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable. Phonetically, it’s “FARK-tate.”

In use, it’s like this:

After wolfing down six pieces of Aunt Edna’s mincemeat pie, Eudora was so farctate that she doubted she’d be able to help with the dishes. This was a Thanksgiving trend of Eudora’s that Phoebe, Eudora’s sister-in-law, noted with great perturbation.

In another “strange but true” bird-related event:

Workers wearing biohazard suits entered a home in a Chicago suburb, removing “an estimated 300 birds, junk and waste from a hoarder’s townhouse.” The bird-loving owner’s home was so farctate that he could no longer live there safely.

Thankfully, the man lived alone! His intentions were good – he started with one bird and just couldn’t say “no” to hundreds more, so I think he can be pardoned.

Much like our nation’s official Thanksgiving turkey! It’s an odd custom with murky origins, but each November, our president pardons a Thanksgiving turkey. The grateful bird even has a “backup” bird, much like a second in a duel, only without the gunfire.

swick.co.uk

Their unfortunate cousins, however, are positively farctate by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, stuffed in preparation so we can stuff them.

Enjoy the holiday!