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For several years, Barbara Wallraff wrote a column titled "Word Fugitives" for the Atlantic magazine. In it she would ask readers to coin words or phrases for holes in the language that dictionary words have failed to fill. (For example, a word for that restless feeling that causes you to repeatedly peer into the refrigerator when you're bored might be "fridgety.") Herewith, my response to some of her readers' heretofore unmet requests (with a few of my own requests thrown in as well) as presented in her book Word Fugitives.
1. dentritus: Things like popcorn or steak sinews stuck between your teeth.
2. purseverer: A woman who's continually putting back the bag that keeps slipping off her shoulder.
3. refuseable: Food in your fridge that hasn't quite gone bad.
4. indeterminansea: When the sky and sea blend together because of clouds and you can't see the horizon.
5. patter-familias: An intra-family joke that your father repeats all too often.
6. manami: A more dignified word to replace the slang "boy friend."
7. epunonyms: Business names with various kinds of wordplay in them (like "Shear Madness").
8. kasting a spell: Deliberately misspelling words and phrases for marketing purposes (like "Krispy Kreme").
9. dead wrong: The mistaken assumption that an out-of-the-limelight celebrity is deceased.
10. chin fizz: Carbon dioxide atomization that rises above the rim of a glass of soda.
11. bumbleshorting: The tendency to lose umbrellas.
12. misApplecation: Certain repetitive keyboard tasks that make their way into other parts of your life (like thinking "Command-Z {Undo}" or Command-F {Find}").
13. voluntearing: Finding yourself sorry that you said you'd be glad to help someone out.
14. badvisor: An incapable person who nevertheless insists on giving counsel to others.
15. acnephobia: Fear of skin breakouts.
16. seeyance/seeyancee: One about to become an ex-husband or ex-wife.
17. showincidence: Tuning in to a TV show just a few times in a year and getting the same episode each time.
18. cat's pause: When a cat inadvertently steps on a remote and changes the TV settings.
19. patricknymics: First and last names that could both be first names (like "James Thomas" or "Patrick Patrick").
20. askmastering: The practice of answering a question with another question.
21. reprosessed: Famous expressions that purportedly are quotations from well-known sources but are the result of inexact recall (like "Play it again, Sam" or "Elementary, my dear Watson").
22. macronym: An abbreviation that is longer than the word it replaces (like "www," nine syllables, for "world wide web," three syllables).
23. phantomiming: Saying an action, instead of performing it (like "Knock, knock").
24. obsessing: The inability to keep a certain song from replaying in your head.
25. zinger of speech: A metaphorical insult (like "He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer").
26. frigger of speech: A word that sounds like a euphemism but isn't (like saying, when preparing a salad, "Excuse me, I have to go turn over my cucumbers").
27. deja flu: The feeling of suffering aches, fevers, and chills yet again.
28. Peja vu: The feeling that you've seen Stoyakovic make that game-winning three-point shot before.
29. surereal: The experience of seeing something in the real, like a painting, after having been familiar with it only in reproductions.
30. mishandling: Recognizing people but calling them by the wrong name.
31. invideosness: The hell of wandering all over a video store and not finding anything worth renting.
32. malapop: Concentrating so hard on not saying the worst possible thing in a situation that it just comes out.
33. self-interviewing: Speakers asking and answering their own questions in a yes-and-no format.
34. nearsute: Almost needing a haircut but not quite.
35. circumgravitating: When a dog goes around and around before it lies down.
36. nonomatopoea: The sudden sensation that a word just sounds strange and you wonder how we ever decided that this combination of sounds should have this meaning.
37. spectrading: Having social conversations about the merits of certain TVs, digital cameras, or cell phones.
38. fretfullness: The periodic urge to rearrange pictures, furniture, potted plants, etc.
39. sleptomania: The fear of leaving something behind after spending a night in a hotel room.
40. persona non wanta: The party who answered the phone when you were hoping just to leave a voice mail.
41. goneirics: Dreams that you forget by the next morning.
42. verditgo: The temporary disorientation experienced when wondering where you parked the car in the crowded mall lot.
43. unfunded mandate: What you have when two gay men go out without their wallets, each expecting the other to pick up the tab.
44. quick-kicked: The feeling you get when an arrogant person contradicts you even before you've finished speaking.
45. hiwaytus: A road construction project started but not completed, usually owing to a lack of funds.
44. tread-dread: Fear of bands or military units marching in funeral parades.
45. mission creep: The tendency, no matter how many times you switch, to find yourself in the slowest lane of traffic when you're already late for your appointment.
46. mamazon: A strong female exhibiting fecundity, vigor, tenderness, and love of pleasure.
47. posthaster: Someone who completes a task as soon as it is assigned.
48. clog walkers: Annoying pedestrians who make sudden stops, swerve into your path, or walk four abreast.
49. double-wides: Overweight trailer park denizens.
50. confesting: Receiving two great invitations for the same evening.
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