Monday, February 16, 2009

First step towards immortality

Why did the chicken cross the road? Have you ever stopped to think that somebody somewhere was the first person to ever tell that joke? That joke was written (or invented, depending on whether you think of jokes as simply pieces of writing or discoveries that should be shared). Stand up comics write jokes all the time, but there aren't really that many that become part of our cultural consciousness that the joke's existence becomes distinct from the writer. Knock knock. Who's There? Ima. Ima who? I'ma kill the guy who came up with the knock knock joke. You can have that one for free.

Sure, we all know the bit about the 7 Words You Can't Say on Television by George Carlin. You can't separate that phrase from Mr. Conductor. Barney from How I Met Your Mother is an innovator of this ilk with his Lemon Law. Who was the first guy to call people "cat" instead of sir or man? I want to congratulate that guy and I'm pissed we don't still do that.

Somewhere down the line, there was a first guy to do that. We don't know who he is; he is an innovator lost in the sands of time, like the inventor of the wheel or penicillin. I do think, however, that whoever that guy was, he would be happier if we started calling each other cat again that erecting a monument in his honor in our downtown city squares. It would probably just come out as a giant marble cat anyway.

I want to join that pantheon of creativity. I was challenged to invent a word as my first offering to those demigods of comedy and posterity for entry into their Olympus over the weekend, and I think I have it: flamty. It started out as flamtankerous, but we can all agree that was way over the top. Flamty is where it's at. The exact defintion is hard to pin down exactly, but I can use it in a few sentences to make it clear for you.
  1. I was going to ask that girl for her number, but that dress makes her ass look flamty.
  2. Hmm, I there's something funny about the marinade, does that steak taste a little flamty to you?
  3. Let's be reasonable here, your sister is clearly the flamtiest in the room. I haven't thrown up even once!
I hope that this will be the first of many inventions of a lexicographic nature to bolster your conversation. Please feel free to post your own interpretations and uses of the word, and also let me know about circumstances in out there away from internetland where this comes up. I hope none of your coming days are flamty.

3 comments:

Andrew Sheffield said...

I just dissected this sheep heart and the pericardium was full of all this flamty congealed blood. I'm pretty sure that's what killed the sheep in the first place. ....did I use it right? Also, true story.

Anonymous said...

By the time I read this about 2 hour 50 minutes after you wrote it, you were already the top hit on Google for "flamty" If there were ever a mark of a new word, that is it. I posted a screen shot which included the time and date. Feel free to copy these if you want.

The funny thing is as soon as your introduced the first example, it seemed to fit and I was immediately sure that one's ass being flamty was not a good thing!

Engineer Sighted said...

@Wachapreague

Eww. And yes.

@ Brian

This is the greatest day of my life.