| Idioism |
|
a self-styled, home-made expression or idiom |
| Chippewa |
|
dishware that chips easily |
| S.O.B.-it |
|
pronouncement for an unpleasant situation that cannot be avoided (ironic replacement for "so be it") |
| ShouldaWouldaCoulda's |
|
hypothetical Indian tribe, always a day late and a dollar short |
| EggSalad |
|
alternative for "excellent" |
| ThreeNaFish |
|
alternative and presumably somewhat better than "tuna fish" |
| The complaint department is Upstairs |
|
complain to God, not to me |
| Computa |
|
Spanglish expletive for a computer that's being a bitch ("puta") |
| The right way, the wrong way and "Nancy's way" |
|
variant on "the Army way" used to denote the inscrutability of my wife's decisions |
| Mentalpause |
|
disparaging term for menopause, implying loss of mental power |
| There will always be mosquitoes |
|
in any situation there will be some factor that can be annoying if you let yourself focus on it. Seeking to remove every last source of annoyance in an attempt to create perfect happiness is counter-productive. |
| The clock just keeps going around |
|
response to early risers who place value on starting early in the morning |
| My noise is better than your noise |
|
tendency to overlook the irritating effect of one's own disruptive behavior as compared to similar activity performed by others |
| My shit is better than your shit |
|
tendency to value one's own possessions above the possessions of others |
| A shave, a shower and a shit |
|
bathroom preparations before going out |
| Opposites subtract |
|
play on "opposites attract" connoting the tendency of opposite personalities to be unable to act productively or to move forward coherently. |
| Use your magic |
|
magic refers to items that would tend to attract or interest others. Don't be too careful in trying to preserve these items as their useful days are numbered. |
| It only takes a second |
|
accidents happen fast, recovery is slow |
| Good parent, bad parent |
|
play on "good cop, bad cop", refering the tendency to see ourselves as the good, nurturing parent while our spouses behavior is seen as destructive to the child |
| Focus on what is |
|
talk about events and feelings that actually exist, not your regrets about what's missing. |
| The Bother Squad |
|
a person who is being annoying |
| The Floor Index |
|
measure of how much clutter is on the floor of a room |
| The Dirt Curve |
|
graph plotting of how dirt accumulates in a house over time |
| Let's go, Cisco |
|
get a move on, let's get out of here |
| Edible and eaten |
|
referring to a wild mushroom that is a good edible, but is thoroughly riddled with insect larvae. |
| Chirp-along |
|
phenonena of singing outdoors and having the birds join in |
| American chopped sewage |
|
variation of American chopped suey, with the connotation that the dish is not appetizing. |
| Air time |
|
the amount (fraction) of time one person gets in contributing to a conversation [appears to be a term in usage already] |
| Save the Mosquito Society |
|
facetious society of those who (reluctantly) contribute blood to keep mosquitoes florishing |
| Disgustamundo |
|
exclamation referring to a disgusting mess or object |
| Creepo-de-mundo |
|
an excessively slow driver (esp. just ahead of you) |
| Conservation of creepdom |
|
tendency that when one slowpoke driver ahead of you turns off, another slowpoke turns in as a replacement |
| There's a lot to be said for cloning |
|
desire to be at more than one place at the same time |
| Two thumbs sideways |
|
variant on Siskal and Ebert's two thumbs up (down) used to denote an emphatic middling review |
| Just like Starbuck's, but without the coffee |
|
said of airline coffee or any seriously understrength cup |
| An expensive bus ride |
|
refers to airplane trip connoting the lack of service and unpleasant human factors |
| Our Lady of Sucrose |
|
appellation for a sugar addict (e.g.Nancy) |
| Sick cow |
|
applied to a mal-functioning computer, you can see it's in pain but it gives you no indication where speicifically the problem is |
| Confuse and conquer |
|
achieving one's ends via bamboozling with a blizzard of complications (e.g. a cell-phone company's terms) |
| Human instinct to block doorways |
|
people tend to hesitate at doorways, impeding traffic flow |
| Human instinct to block food-tables |
|
people tend to linger around food-table, preventing access by others |
| Shit city |
|
a messy house |
| Shit central |
|
a messy house |
| Garbagelandia |
|
a messy house |
| Miss Information |
|
a woman who consistently supplies wrong information |
| Schleper colony |
|
people who like to carry (schlep) gaggles of unruly bags |
| Shuffle the shit |
|
move the mess from one place to another, without organizing it or throwing anything away |
| Relatively good time |
|
time spent with relatives |
| In one head and out the other |
|
variation on in on ear and out the other, emphasizing the lack of mental attention or capacity |
| There's always a lost sheep |
|
in any effort to organize a large number of items there will always be at least one that requires special attention |
| Don't panic yet |
|
calm down (because there's still time left before you truly need to panic) |
| Panic mode |
|
(e.g. go into "panic mode") state characterized by unnecessary panic |
| Friend boy |
|
male who is a friend of a female (in distinction to a romantic boy-friend) |
| Friend girl |
|
female who is a friend of a male (in distinction to a romantic girl-friend) |
| If you try to irritate people, you just might succeed |
|
warning to a person who confuses being irritating with being amusing |
| There's a lot to be said for cloning |
|
admission that one is so over-loaded with activities to do that having surrogate selves would be beneficial |
| Meano-beano |
|
a mean person (said playfully) |
| Dance junkie |
|
said of Dance Friday regulars, who need to participate in dancing almost as an addiction |
| Guiltify |
|
to get ones way through use of guilt |
| A.D.D. mode |
|
behavioral pattern characterized by impatience and obsessional focus on a particular need at the moment |
| Nuclear density |
|
extremely dense concentration of people or material |
| Don't fight the logic |
|
maxim for programmers to solve problems via clean deisgn rather than using deeply nested logical contigencies that handle a multitude of special cases |
| Babylandia |
|
a place or event that is characterized by an over-surplus of babies |
| Zugswanged |
|
in a position where you're totally stuck and without options (from the chess term "zugswang", a completely cramped, defensive position from which any move is detrimental, yet some move must be made) |
| Highly true |
|
used to assert something being true, but in an overblown way for comic effect |
| Standard delay |
|
the amount of time by which a specified person is typical late, the idea being that one should inherently adjust for this in judging the person's punctuality |
| An expensive cab ride |
|
a meeting with many high paid employees, refering to the high burn rate of dollar wages at such meetings |
| Persistence of ignorance |
|
a propensity of some people to hold on to their misconceptions in spite of what should be convincing evidence to the contrary. Roughly equivalent to "none so blind as those who will not see" |
| Ugly colors |
|
jarring colors employed by some artists to create an effect of discord or repugnance |
| Intentionally underdeveloped |
|
descriptive of towns that have preserved open space and resisted commercial development against the economic forces that would normally produce more commercial and residential development |
| It's spring and the skunk cabbage is in full bloom |
|
humorous acknowledgment that spring brings not only the conventionally beautiful flowers |
| The crocuses are croaking |
|
facetious expression for the excitement of the early-spring blooming of crocuses |
| Medium burnt |
|
facetious expression describing food that has been burnt (in analogy with "medium rare" or "medium well") |
| Saint Elsewhere's Disease |
|
personality trait characterized by the desire to be sowewhere else or with someone else then the current one |
| Swavobia |
|
imaginary place of punishment and/or great distance, as in "One more comment like that and I'll send you to Swavobia" |
| The Narrows |
|
any passageway in a house that is made dysfunctionally narrow by placing furnature or objects that restrict passage |
| Hearse (and rehearse) |
|
an initial rehearsal (and contiuned rehearsal) |
| Broom and rug job |
|
a problem best handled through concealment and not worth the effort of actually addressing directly |
| Fight shit with shit |
|
when bureaucrats ask for overly burdensome documentation, reply by sending them an inpenetrable maze of paperwork that appears to address their concern |
| The garlic cure |
|
any dish characterized by a strong concentration of garlic; the term facetiously emphasizes the medicinal rather than the culinary |
| Get vertical |
|
get up from bed |
| Verticalize |
|
get up from bed |
| Reality gap |
|
an aspect of arguing with another person in which the basic facts cannot be agreed upon; tends to degenerate into useless disputation |
| Dead bread |
|
bread, like Wonderbread, that is devoid of any wholesomeness or taste |
| Bumpa-ta-bumpa-ta-bumpa |
|
traffic that's bumper-to-bumper, only moreso |
| Make a plan to break a plan |
|
tendency to make a plan and then, as a reaction, depart from the planned activity |
| Relanche |
|
describing entry into a mission or task without any rational hope of a successful completion e.g. out of a sense of obligation (Mexican idiom??) |
| A tree with a house |
|
a small house dominated by a large tree growing next to it, emphasizing the reversal of usual roles (analagous to the tail wagging the dog, or the beard leading the head) |
| (Oh look!) The elves have prepared the table |
|
sarcastic expression used toward loafers (e.g. teenagers) who seem unaware of the effort going into preparing an organized meal |
| Holy frijoles |
|
Spanglish for Holy Mackeral |
| He never fails to avoid refusing to undo mistakes |
|
example of a sentence overloaded with negations |
| Whose-name-I-forget |
|
placeholder expression substituted for someone's actual name when I can't remember it, e.g. "Hi there, whose-name-I-forget". |
| Under-appreciated |
|
the feeling of not getting appreciated as much as deserved (but a step above feeling unappreciated) |
| Geekette |
|
a female geek |
| Phonophobic |
|
dislike of or aversion to receiving telephone calls or use of the phone |
| Phonophilic |
|
love of the use of the telephone |
| Ingoing |
|
introverted, opposite of "outgoing" |
| Hawairish |
|
combining Hawaian and Irish attributes, typically an unpalatable mix, e.g. potatoes with pineapples |
| El Senor Dad |
|
spanglish respectful term for "father" |
| Crapola |
|
crap |
| Fuck it, fuck it, who gives a ducat |
|
I don't give a damn |
| Micro-snitch |
|
a small amount of motion or adjustment |
| Land of "up" |
|
state of being awake and out of bed |
| Scene-ICK |
|
the opposite of scenic |
| Crisis du jour |
|
today's crisis (when there's always a new and different one) |
| Do all you can, but not more than you can |
|
when recovering from a injury, it's better to push yourself than be over protective, but know your limit |
| A picture is worth and 1000 words, and the real thing is worth 1000 pictures |
|
in trying to understand a machine or device there's nothing as good a having the real item in front of you to study |
| Number one wife |
|
facetious expression for one's wife (irony between the supposed exalted status of being number one and the implication that there are other wives) |
| There are many more ways for things to go wrong than to go right |
|
systems can fail in many, many ways, making it all but impossible to anticipate every mode in which a system can fail |
| Four penny rule |
|
in transactions involving small change, one always seems to be one penny short of the number needed, resulting in having four pennies at the end |
| Butter abuse |
|
slovenly use of butter in cooking and/or storage |
| Parent abuse |
|
mean behavior toward parents from their child or children |
| Married singles |
|
those who are married but who socialize typically as singles |
| Tai-wan-on-ese |
|
language as spoken by a drunkard (who's "tied one on") |
| Al Bano |
|
pronounced Al Banyo, spanglish for the bathroom (e.g. I'm going to visit Al Bano) |
| Sue Ordenes |
|
girlfriend of Al Bano (from the Spanish idiom, "a su ordenes") |
| Don't worry, Murray |
|
"Don't worry" with comic emphasis |
| Insultant |
|
a person specializing in giving insults, analogous to consultant |
| Blamemeister |
|
person who makes it his/her function to assess blame |
| Everything should be everywhere |
|
facetiously describing a method of organization where one should never have to go to another room to get anything |
| A little brain surgery on the side |
|
sarcastic expression for activity preformed with mediocre skill, but one that really requires complete mastery. |
| Central scare |
|
for Central Square |
| Crippple you |
|
for Kripalu Institute |
| I only have one lifetime to give (to this task) |
|
said sarcastically (apologies to Nathan Hale) about an activity that is taking so long or appears to require so much time that one lifetime would not be sufficient to complete it. |
| Bad mudrah |
|
combining of "bad mood" and "bad mudrah (= position)" |
| Excelbente |
|
excellent |
| Collective amnesia |
|
phenomenon in which no one present memory can recall some specific piece of information (e.g. a name) |
| Flattening |
|
lying on top of someone else's body with full, motionless weight |
| If it needs to be |
|
facetious concurrence with another person's assertion, designed to manipulate or exculpate, but which you know to be false |
| The Martians did it |
|
facetious blaming of the "Martians" when someone refuses to admit their culpabilty or attributes blame to a far-fetched cause. |
| Sonovavich |
|
Russian surname (pronounced 'son-NO-va-vich'), sounded as a disguised form of "son-of-a bitch" |
| He's a foremost authority, but what is he for most? |
|
meaning is self-evident |
| Tremendo-bendo |
|
pseudo-Italian for tremendous/excellent |
| I have grown, my family has grown, they will groan |
|
description of an overly-formulaic essay sent to college admissions board |
| Yes sir, you are fat |
|
play on name, Yassir Arafat |
| Tearer downer |
|
home-for-sale in worse shape than a fixer upper |
| Die-and-burn |
|
alternative to live-and-learn |
| If you don't know where you're going, you're probably not going to get there |
|
don't expect to achieve success if you don't know what you're after |
| Bagel-like substance |
|
a low quality bagel, barely worthy of the name |
| Traveling twit show |
|
disfunctional group of travelers, barely capable of coordinated movement |
| What do you want from my blood? |
|
what do you want from me? You're bothering me |
| Fuck-a-doodle-dandy |
|
drat |
| Harry Pothead |
|
Harry Potter (cockneye "Airy Pawt-eyd") |
| Can you put up with us, I mean, put us up? |
|
request to stay as guests |
| Buy-sexual |
|
one who "buys" sex |
| Try-sexual |
|
one who "tries" sex |
| Forward progress |
|
meeting goal by not getting distracted or backsliding |
| Zone elimination method |
|
search method to find something by making absolutely sure it is not in some zone, then moving on to the next zone |
| "I knew that" |
|
know-it-all refrain applied to whatever someone else states |
| Clutter zone |
|
a metaphorical, generalized zone of disorganized belongings where an item can be misplaced never (or rarely) to be found again |
| Mira, mira. On the wall. |
|
Spanglish takeoff on Sleeping Beauty verse |
| Live a little, we deliver liver |
|
slogan for a fictional liver specialty deli |
| Bit to shit |
|
attacked by mosquitos or other insects |
| To ib |
|
a fictitious "pro-verb", i.e. a place-holder verb used to stand for the previously used verb. Designed to add even more confusion to conversation. (3rd persion = ibs, past tense = ibbed) |
| No child's behind left behind |
|
restatement of Bush's education plan slogan |
| Clintonian |
|
resembling the language use of Bill Clinton, that is making overly fine distinctions |
| Mono-ed |
|
single sex college, as opposed to coed |
| Camp Annoya |
|
place where people or situation is annoying |
| Very good, very fine |
|
said in Spanishy accent |
| Untie the knot |
|
get divorced |
| Take the van, Morrison |
|
said when we use our van instead of the sedan |
| That's a good problem, as opposed to a bad problem |
|
a problem that arises from having to choose among two or more good options |
| Blow air around |
|
talk without substance, e.g. asserting unverifiable propositions. |
| Don't expect your lawyer to do your lying for you |
|
lawyers will only present the facts in the best possible light. If you need to lie, take this responsibility on your own conscience. |
| Whither thou goest I will not go |
|
said to a creepie driver at an intersection where I have a choice of 2 routes. |
| In one brain and out the other |
|
referring to a person who can't seem to understand the point you're trying to make |
| Bum-master general |
|
person who takes the role of bumming everyone else out, e.g. a meter maid |
| 4M principal |
|
Motivation by Manipulation Makes for Misery |
| Straighterly |
|
proceeding roughly straight ahead. Straighterly is in analogy to northerly or southerly |
| Dame and shout |
|
variation on "shame and doubt" implying dames create provocation resulting in shouting |
| Nervous Nellie's and Eager Beavers |
|
dichotomy of road drivers into the dangerously slow and the dangerously fast |
| What if I'm really OK? |
|
affirmation as a defense against hypochondria |
| Walking the dog- getting yourself out of the house for a much needed walk
Nervous Nellies and eager beavers |
|
world of auto drivers is divided between the crawlers and the racers |
| Bryn Mawr money |
|
derisive nickname for Bryn Mawr with its high student costs |
| Coddlege |
|
coddling college |
| Nobody beats the House |
|
death will overcome all of us |
| (How's the) Weather inside |
|
internal state matter more than outside weather |
| Let's go, beau |
|
let's get a move on, hoeny |
| Fudge name |
|
free-association name (known to be incorrect) spouted when trying to remember the real name |
| This, not That; A, not B |
|
need for conceptual separation. Everything can't be a mish-mash |
| Wussy pillows |
|
for pussy willows |
| Tough mazel |
|
tough luck (instead of mazel tov, good luck) |
| "i" before "e" except after "c" |
|
or when sounded like "ay", as in neighbor or weigh
or when sounded like "ee", as in leisure or seize
or when sounded like "iy", as in heist or height
or when sounded like "ee-yeh", as in being or deist
(note also either, neither, seeing, boeing) |
| stinkola juice |
|
cologne |
| tell me what to do today |
|
inverting advice, don't worry about missed opportunities |
| Everyone loves raisin bagels, but they're always the ones left at the end of the party |
|
nobody really likes raisin bagels when offered a choice |
| It's all your'n |
|
said when finishing up at the urinal and letting the next person have his turn |
| Given nothing, prove everything |
|
said of an assignment where nothing is specified let full comprehensive analysis is expected |
| Who won the US-Iraqi war? |
|
China |
| Confuse and conquer |
|
strategy of marketers who make terms so confusing the only options are to try it out or leave it |
| If it needs to be |
|
forget the facts, you'll do what you want anyway |
| Vanilla chords |
|
basic musical chords (major, minor, 7th) as opposed to the more interesting variants (sus, 9th, dim, maj7, etc.) |
| A mean old acid |
|
variant on amino acid |
| Zeroeth approximation |
|
not an approximation, the thing itself as perceived directly |
| Happiness is better than no penis at all |
|
maxim for women? |
| The big W in the sky |
|
Cassaeopia constellation |
| It's all your'n |
|
said on turning over one's place at the urinal |
| Given nothing, prove everything |
|
said of a task request to derive a design without giving an specifications |
| Phonophobic |
|
characterized by dislike of talking on the phone |
| Phonophilic |
|
characterized by enjoymnet of talking on the phone |
| If you don't get column A, then you get column B |
|
everyone has their own set of strengths and weaknesses |
| To kill for |
|
variant of "to die for", with notable change in fatal target |
| To die from |
|
opposite of "to die for" |
| Shit on a stick |
|
curse applied to a bad turn of event |
| Sometimes the closest approximation to to truth is a lie |
|
applied when telling the truth will be so misconstrued or mis-used by the recipient that a lie better communicates the reality |
| Microsnitch |
|
a tiny amount (e.g. turn the handle a microsnitch) |
| Mellow as jello |
|
very mellow |
| TV roulette |
|
channel surfing |
| First day with the hook |
|
a klutsy move especially near the eye |
