Of Bliviots, Senatorpedos, and Euphemisms for Death

A few days ago on Facebook, my old* high-school friend Pepper asked my opinion of a neologism** she'd coined: bliviot, meaning a blowhard, oblivious idiot. As you might suspect, I loved it ... it is an amazingly versatile and tremendously useful word, particularly in the context of modern American politics, and I do believe I am in semantic love with Pepper.

Pepper's coining of the word bliviot came on the heels of a recent Washington Post Style Invitational contest in which entrants were challenged to come up with words containing the letters SANE together in any order. The winning entry was senatorpedo, defined as "a Cruz missile." As used in a sentence: "The tea party’s vaunted senatorpedo self-destructed shortly after its launch."

Words are wonderful things, aren't they? We discussed puns in this space the other day, and in her most recent post, Angel wrote about some of the euphemisms for death used in her home-town newspaper, the New Orleans Times-Picayune. As I noted in the comment I left on that post, I have a large collection of euphemisms for death that I've collected over the years. Here are a few ...

Some Julia Child euphemisms for death:

Has Reservations at the Chateau Eternity;

Sleeping with the Quiches;

Marinating in Soil and Worms;  

  

Promoted to Subterranean Truffle Inspector; and,

Basting the Formaldehyde Turkey.

Some sports euphemisms for death:

On the unable to breathe list;

Tailgating with Jesus;

Taking a congratulatory phone call from President Taft;

Jockeying for position in the dirt derby;

Went to see the fat lady in concert; and,

Really stuck her dismount.

And finally, a few online euphemisms for death:

Clicked the bucket;

www.he's-dead,-jim.com;

Visiting the Chat Tomb; and,

404ever, Pulse Not Found.

And lest I get too wordy, we'll just stop here.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* By which I mean, "witty and beautiful."

** First meaning only!