{"id":226,"date":"2010-01-12T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/2010\/01\/12\/whats-the-meaning-of-michigan\/"},"modified":"2010-01-12T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T17:00:00","slug":"whats-the-meaning-of-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/2010\/01\/12\/whats-the-meaning-of-michigan\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s the meaning of Michigan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The late, brilliant Douglas Adams co-authored a book called The Meaning of Liff<\/em>. From Wikipedia<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

It is a “dictionary of things that there aren’t any words for yet”; all the words listed are place names, and describe common feelings and objects for which there is no current English word. Examples are Shoeburyness<\/i> (“The vague uncomfortable feeling you get when sitting on a seat which is still warm from somebody else’s bottom”) and Abinger<\/i> (“One who washes up everything except the frying pan, the cheese grater and the saucepan which the chocolate sauce has been made in”).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I acquired this book many years ago because I loved Douglas Adams, but never really got<\/em> it. After finding a (typo-ridden) copy online<\/a>, I’ve a newfound respect for it. Part of the genius, of course, is that the “made-up” words are all place names.<\/p>\n

Here are my favorites entries from just the letter W:<\/p>\n

WEST WITTERING (participial vb.)<\/b>
The uncontrollable twitching which breaks out when you’re trying to get away from the most boring person at a party. <\/p>\n

WINKLEY (n.)<\/b>
A lost object which turns up immediately you’ve gone and bought a replacement for it. <\/p>\n

WORKSOP (n.)
<\/b>A person who never actually gets round to doing anything because he spends all his time writing out lists headed ‘Things to Do (Urgent)’. <\/p>\n

WRABNESS (n.)
<\/b>The feeling after having tried to dry oneself with a damp towel.<\/b> <\/p>\n

WYOMING (participial vb.)
<\/b>Moving in hurried desperation from one cubicle to another in a public lavatory trying to find one which has a lock on the door, a seat on the bowl and no brown streaks on the seat. <\/p>\n

You get the picture. It’s a great concept. Here are a few more I’ve recently come up with myself: <\/p>\n

LANSING (participial vb.)
<\/strong>Saying the wrong lyrics while singing along to the radio, especially in the presence of someone else.<\/p>\n

EAST LANSING (participial vb.)
<\/strong>A form of lansing in which one errs by singing the bridge or chorus a verse too soon.<\/p>\n

REDDING (participial vb.)
<\/strong>Gingerly raising a hot liquid to your lips in anticipation or fear of it burning your tongue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The late, brilliant Douglas Adams co-authored a book called The Meaning of Liff. From Wikipedia: It is a “dictionary of things that there aren’t any words for yet”; all the words listed are place names, and describe common feelings and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1c91x-3E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}