Words for My Enjoyment

I Am Overcompensating For A Lack of Knowledge

October 7th, 2006

Sadly I don’t know a whole hell of a lot.

That’s why I make up words like gestationalism (the act of gestationing), teflonater (when one finds they’ve been ingesting slivers of teflon in their breakfast eggs and doesn’t complain), importantater (the most perfect tater tot on the cookie sheet), singluer (a single person who never leaves your side at a bar), toonstool (an animated stool sitter who rocks nonstop like someone with A.D.D.) and even gooyah (an exclamation phrase like booyah, but as spoken by a messy dresser with gooey food particles dried on their shirt).

Surprisingly, such overcompensation makes me feel extremely smart.

My overcompensation for a lack of knowledge started to show itself early on in very subtle ways. When my third grade teacher Mrs. Miller asked me what the capital of Washington was, I would often go off on a tirade about the importance of a competitive minimum wage, and would then be sure to introduce a new word I called “wagesters” which related to the people making the minimum wage who weren’t happy with the minimum wage, thus “waging war” against the politicos who were in control of such things. The double entendre obviously impressed my teacher, and I passed third grade with flying colors despite coloring outside the lines.

And that was just one example of my overcompensating for knowing bupkis (which is a word I didn’t make up, but wish I had).

Often, when I run into people at parties and they’re speaking in another language (like French), because I know absolutely next to nothing in the French language I often make up French words that tie up the Frenchheads’ brains (Frenchheads, meaning those whose heads are filled with French) like: Che-schwa (pronounced: jhe, schwah), Onomotopeesha (pronounced: ah-no moto peach-a) and Questquecsai (pronounced: kest kay swah). What they mean, I have no idea, since I made them up during the French Student Exchange of ‘98 at the punch/potluck table. But believe you me, those Frenchheads never paused for a moment to contemplate that I didn’t know French. No, my overcompensation for my lack of knowledge just caused them to wonder if they were too drunk, instead.

I once made up the word “conchter” to mean “an angry shell of some kind” when, while on a science trip to the wading pool just off the coast of Sydney, Australia, friends punctured their feet on the sharp hidden edges of hidden conch shells and asked me what first aid steps to stop the bleeding… “That conchter sure got you good,” I said, disregarding the question about first aid.

And my overcompensation saved me yet again.

When people ask me to multiply two three-digit numbers together (like 254 multiplied by 983) I will often pause, and point out to said matharassers (those who test everyone around them with math problems that are often unsolveable without paper and pencil) that the word multiplication can be re-arranged to form the phrase: Million Cat Puti which refers to the instance in 1956 when (in the city of Providence, Rhode Island) a million plus house cats got loose, marched through the city and ate through tons of clay and putty (or Puti, as spelled in Gaelic) that was left outside an early version of today’s scrapbooking stores — and which caused the so-called Putiplague of ‘56.

Whether or not it was true is beside the fact. Because it keeps those matharassers from doing what they think they do best.

Someone asks me my thoughts on today’s politics, and I’ll ask them to feel my bicept (“it’s huge!”). Someone asks me directions to the local library, and I’ll switch over to one of my other faux-multiple personalities (like Pagliachi the opera singer or Gibson the Tourette’s inflicted British man servant). Someone wonders aloud if the world will end in a big bang or a small whimper and I drool.

Yes. Just drool. It does the trick.

Overcompensating is my new way of life. Because when you feel like you’re stupid there’s only way way to make yourself not feel stupid in the first place. It’s to pretend you’re smarter about something else entirely, which usually draws the attention of the smartifiers (those who try to suck the smarts from everyone around them in an attempt to appear smarter themselves) and sucks them into a neverending infinitious circle of logic problems, that more often than not simply short out those chips in their heads.

I’m still trying to come up with a better word for “chips in their heads.”

In the meantime, I’ll continue to make up words to distract you. I’ll do my best to divert your focus to a slew of other ridiculous things. I’ll strive to overcompensate for my lack of knowledge by investing you in a discussion about frogs, their reproductive organs and the Bible Belt religious fanatics who love them simply because they remember reading a book by Mark Twain in elementary school that was all about frog racing.

And that, my friends, is real true knowledge.

Posted under Lexicon, Me. |