Burrowictionary

Welcome to the Burrowictionary, a repository of all manner of weird and wonderful words that the Burrowers (or our friends) have made up and which we use (not infrequently) in our writing.

Words from the HPANA era

Digressionism, n. A religion in which the ability to make random connections and left-hand turns into obscurity are highly-prized attributes.  If you can finish up a paragraph halfway around the world from where you started, so much the better.
Etymology: Cruella started it, and Tami is a devout worshipper.  The rest of us drop by from time to time too...

Frunk, adj. How you type "drunk" when you are drunk.  "Warning!  Frunk post!"
Etymology: Erm, we're not really sure who did this first, 'cause, y'know, we were frunk.

Glomp, v. The giving of big squishy hugs.  Typically expressed as an asteriskism (q.v.).
Etymology: Lost in the mists of time...

Hing, intj.  Universal swear word. “Hing, bloody hing! I hate it when that happens!”
Etymology: Cruella, our most productive wordsmith (if by wordsmith we mean word-maker-upper) is not a Native English Speaker—very good, yes, but occasionally we see a sign. In her early HPANA interactions, she came into the thread to wish us a happy Wednesday, and goofed on the idiom 'Happy Hump Day' with 'Happy Humping Day'. A touchy, ne, power-tripping mod deleted her post with the strong reprimand to avoid using the “H” word, especially in the 'ing form'. Much discussion ensued as to the offending 'H word' (as that wasn't part of the reprimand) and Cruella wrote a brilliant essay in which she determined the “H” “ing” word was obviously “Hing”.

Knonle, n.1. a poster who responds only to the first post in a thread, without bothering to read any of the following posts and thereby misses the fact that the question has been answered and the topic has moved far afield, usually creating a breathtaking non sequitur.
v.2. the act of such posting.
Etymology: Once upon a time our friend Brandon (before he became such) wandered into a thread about kneazles and posted a misspelt and oblivious reply ("I think Mrs. Norris is a knonle").  Susannah picked it up and ran with it, the rest of us jumped on board, and we had a lovely useful new word for an all-too-common occurrence.

Misattributing, v. Unfathomably, this is not a real word. It is the act of intentionally misunderstanding the intention of what somebody says for amusement and sport. The beauty of the word is it inevitably does what it means, especially in a sentence: "I've been misattributing again because I am really bored."
Etymology: This is the Tart's superpower. She thought it was a real word. She really did. She has been doing this thing since the beginning of time, as it is her favorite form of humour (she even passed it to her son) but apparently only recently gave it its appropriate name.


Ne, intj.  Expression requesting agreement at the end of a sentence, typically followed by a question mark. Very similar in use and meaning to how the Canadians use 'eh' or Spanish speakers use 'no?'
Etymology: Another of Cruella's babies, though Hart picked it up quickly and began the attempt to spread it, possibly because in the book Ender's Game the expression 'neh' is used the same way.  Possibly related to the Japanese enclitic interrogative participle... or maybe that's just fun to say.




Mistakes we kept

Boken keboa, n. Tara has more computer problems than the rest of us put together; one of the funniest (at least afterward) was the infamous boken keboa era (that's "broken keyboard", which should now be self-explanatory...)

Couiple, n. A nice innuendo-ey form of couple... the 'i' suggests coitus, doesn't it?
Etymology: plain old typo, initially.

Fwuztwatin, adj. A heightened form of "frustrating", as it is indeed very frustrating to try and type "frustrating" with no r, s, or g.
Etymology: This was a survival-tactic formation in the aforementioned boken keboa era.

Popely, adv.  It isn't quite 'properly' but close enough for religious purposes.
Etymology: Another boken keboa word.


Random coinages

Procrastibaking, v. Putting off whatever you're supposed to be doing by baking instead.
Etymology: Briony, our Aussie pal, coined this one for a drabble during BuNoWriMo and we immediately jumped on the concept.

Procrastinakeding, v. Putting off whatever you're supposed to be doing by getting naked instead.
Etymology: Briony (by Tami's request)

Procrastiknitting, v. Putting off - oh, you get the idea.
Etymology: Rayna coined this one to describe one of Leanne's frequent pastimes.

(etc.)

Bookvalanche, n. A falling cascade of books.  Frequently happens 1) in the middle of the night, when they land on your head, or 2) all over the aisle of the bookstore right when your district manager walks in.
Etymology:  Leanne builds bookpiles.  Sometimes they fall over.  More specifically, a portmanteau of "book" and "avalanche".

Confuzzlegasted, adj. A severe state of confusion.
Etymology: A Tara-word, and a portmanteau of the already-odd "confuzzled" and "flabbergasted".

Confuzzlegastemused, adj. A heightened state of the preceding.  Not so much a portmanteau as an entire luggage suite by this point.
Etymology: As above, with the addition of "amused".

Asteriskism, n. The actions in asterisks used to indicate what you're doing (other than typing, of course).  Popular choices are *snort*, *glomps*, *dies*, *needs (something)*, *bleaches brain* etc. ad infinitum.
Etymology: Tara named this on one of her early blog posts.

Nudify, v. To add nudity or make naked.
Etymology:  When the Tart channels Cruella, you get digression-y innuendo.  When Cruella channels the Tart, you get words like nudify (which she Googled and found), but the movement has taken off.


Taff-speak

If you've missed any of Tara's instructional posts, click here, here, here, or here to get started.  When you're done laughing and want to find out what it all meant, come back here.  Etymology for all is - well, it's just how they talk, like, innit?

Clart, n. Male person

Clit, n. Female person (rude in standard English, perfectly acceptable in Taff)

Butt, n. friend/mate

Mucker, n. alternative for friend/mate.

like, innit, intj. usually placed at the end of almost every sentence, e.g. "I iz right ducked off now, like innit?"

youknowzitmakezsense a very popular phrase here in the Kair of Diff (q.v.). One of those several-words-in-one thingies - 'you know it makes sense'.

The Kair of Diff, n. what Taffies call 'Cardiff', which is the capital city of Wales, and also where our Taffy lives.

lush, tidy, bangin, adj. all variations of describing something that is brilliant, lovely, etc.

well '_____', adj. ph. usually in place of 'very', as in, "Bluddy 'ell, that dinner was well lush, like innit!"

anallat, intj. another popular phrase, this is another one of those several-words-in-one thingies - 'and all that'.

I do, encl. usually added to random phrases, normally when we say we like something.  "I loves choclut I do, I loves it!"


4 comments:

Unknown said...

I LOVE THIS!!!!!!

*glomps*

Amber T. Smith said...

Bluddy 'ell, itz like, totally lush like, that Taff speak iz now in a dicshunary, innit? Ducking faboolus, like.

*dances*

Cruella Collett said...

I must say this is one of my favourite posts ever. We're spreading the word! (Or words, as the case may be...)

EXCELLENT job, Leanne (and other Burrowers) :)

Tina said...

When I first found the Burrow, thanks Rayna, I started reading this tab, and was chortling and giggling and then had to do something else before finishing reading. Decided that since I'm covered in hives and my meds won't be here until tomorrow, I needed some more chortles and remembered this treasure. Thank you. Now off to read some of the links so that my vocabulary will be up to par.
Tina @ Life is Good