Get orbisculate into the dictionary

To orbisculate. Meaning, “to accidentally squirt juice and/or pulp into one’s eye, as from a grapefruit when using a spoon to scoop out a section for eating.”

orbisculate“Is ‘orbisculate’ a word? The late Neil Krieger’s children want it to be.” That’s the title of a recent Boston Globe article.

“Hilary Krieger, now 43 and an editor for NBC News’s THINK, was 24 when she used it with a friend… ‘We were eating fruit – I believe it was oranges – and I said, it ‘orbisculated on you.’ [The friend] was like, ‘That’s not a word. … My first feeling was pity. Like, this is going to be embarrassing when he finds out that this is a word.'”

Except that it wasn’t. It was a creation of her father. “Neil Krieger was a scientist and entrepreneur. After 20 years teaching neuroscience…, he founded West Rock Associates, a biotech grant recruitment firm. He was committed to civil rights activism and was involved with the Boston chapter of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality).

“Krieger died of complications from COVID-19 on April 29. He was 78.

“Now his adult children are on a mission. They want ‘orbisculate’ added to the dictionary, to honor their father. (Also, it’s a perfectly useful intransitive verb, they say.) They’ve launched a website with a petition to dictionary editors.”

The blog

And on the website is the post How to Break into a Dictionary.

“The way a word qualifies for inclusion is when it’s being used by a lot of people. Dictionaries employ scores of editors to scour the English language for new words and check whether they’re being used often and widely. And like many things, the best way to get a word used widely is by word of mouth…

“But there was, of course, a catch. Dictionary editors only count certain types of uses of the word: When it’s used in context. That means that references to the word as a word, rather than employing it for what it means, don’t get added to their count.”

OK. “I hold the Friskies cat food can away from me when I open it, lest it orbisculate on me.” BTW, this is true.

The Krieger family is “also selling T-shirts with the word on them; all proceeds benefit Carson’s Village, an organization that helps families with resources right after a loss (the group does everything from helping to coordinate burials to setting up obituaries, for free).”

Lunaversary

I am sympathetic because I’m a big fan of the word lunaversary. It’s made it into the Urban Dictionary, but its example is terrible. “Our 4-month lunaversary is on Saturday.” NO! “Our fourth lunaversary is on Saturday.” Yes!

The Merriam-Webster people are looking at the ‘-iversary’ word part. “Monthiversary (with its variant monthaversary) to be the strongest contender for full establishment in the language.” [SHUDDER!]  Mensiversary would be OK, I guess, but one loses the sense of the insanity of new love.

L is for lunaversary

Luna- is the prefix, not just for moon-based objects, from which the word “month” comes, but for “lunatics” and “lunacy,” all the things “early-stage intense romantic love” is.

moon-20120922-thm“Six-month anniversary.” Something is just linguistically WRONG about that. Anni- refers to the year. Now, semi-anniversary, or some variation would be OK.

You may have read about the studies dealing with the “swooning magic of head-over-heels love.” Researchers “found high amounts of activity in a ‘reward’ part of the brain when the smitten subjects were shown photos of their honeys. That part of the brain has previously been linked to the desire for cocaine, chocolate, and money.

“It shows us exactly why love looks so crazy. It’s activating these circuits that are associated with very intense desire,” said SUNY Stony Brook psychologist Arthur Aron,” who helped lead one study.

Well, luna- is the prefix, not just for moon-based objects, from which the word “month” comes, but for “lunatics” and “lunacy,” all the things “early-stage intense romantic love” is. Lunaversary (loon’ a ver’ sah ree) is the monthly recurrence of a notable event. It is far more accurate than “one-month anniversary”, and far shorter to boot.

You never heard of lunaversary before? That’s because I created it. Or so I believe. When I wrote about this previously, some other guy claims HE invented it, and he probably did, and around the same time; the logic is rather rudimentary.

Nevertheless, I had sent this word to the late William Safire’s “On Language” column in the New York Times about twenty years ago. Safire thought it was interesting construction, and he did type me a response suggesting that the idea had merit. He said he considered using it in his column, but never did. I still have that blue postcard somewhere in the attic.

Use “lunaversary” at will. Tell them when they say “fifth month anniversary” that the PREFERRED term is “fifth lunaversary.” Impress your friends, and confound those who aren’t familiar with this word.

(Based on a post from June 15, 2005.)

abc 17 (1)
ABC Wednesday – Round 17

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial