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MUSHROOM

PRONUNCIATION: (MUHSH-room)

MEANING: verb intr.: 1. To grow rapidly.
2. To develop into the shape of a mushroom.
3. To collect wild mushrooms.
adjective: 1. Of or relating to mushrooms.
2. Developing or growing quickly.

ETYMOLOGY: From allusion to the rapid growth of mushrooms, some literally appearing overnight. From Old French mousseron, from Latin mussirion. Earliest documented use: 1440.
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MUSTROOM - chamber in a winery where the grapes rest after they have just been pressed. Compare MASHROOM in a beer brewewry.

MUSHBROOM - for cleaning up after your dogs at Iditarod

MUSEROOM - where budding artists go for inspiration

MUSHROOM - right after the lambda shroom

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COUCH POTATO

PRONUNCIATION: (COUCH puh-tay-to)

MEANING: noun: A person who leads a sedentary life, usually watching television.

ETYMOLOGY: Why a couch potato? Why not a couch tomato or a couch pumpkin? The term was coined after boob tube, slang for television. One who watches a boob tube is a boob tuber and a tuber is a potato. According to the Bon Appétit magazine, the term was coined by Tom Iacino. Yesterday’s couch potato is today’s mouse potato, spending time in front of a computer screen, surfing the web. Earliest documented use: 1970s.
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OUCH POTATO - too hot to hold

COACH POTATO - 1. supposed to teach you how to play, but all he does is warm the bench
2. more perks than First Class, but less expensive

COUGH POTATO - when by accident you inhale the crumbs from the bottom of the bag of chips

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NEWSPEAK

PRONUNCIATION: (NOO-speek, NYOO-)

MEANING: noun: Deliberately ambiguous or euphemistic language used for propaganda.

ETYMOLOGY: Coined by George Orwell in his novel 1984. Newspeak was the official language of Oceania. Earliest documented use: 1949.

USAGE:Oldspeak is the opposite of newspeak. For example, in 1984, the oldspeak “labor camp” is called a newspeak “joycamp”. But you don’t have to go to fiction to find newspeak.

What is “torture” in oldspeak becomes “interrogation”, or even better, “enhanced interrogation” in newspeak. While “waterboarding” itself is newspeak -- no, it’s not a water sport -- they go one step further and couch it as “enhanced interrogation”. As if in regular interrogation one is suffocated with regular water while waterboarding, but in enhanced they use nothing less than Evian.
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NOWSPEAK - the new Newspeak. See also NETSPEAK, NEOSPEAK.

FEWSPEAK - the utterances of a person who doesn't mince words

NEWSTEAK - Zymoveal (with apologies to Isaac Asimov)

NEWSPEEK - Read all about it! Take a look at tomorrow's Journal today!

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DOUBLETHINK

PRONUNCIATION: (DUB-uhl-thingk)

MEANING: noun: An acceptance of two contradictory ideas at the same time.

ETYMOLOGY: From George Orwell’s novel 1984. Earliest documented use: 1949.

NOTES: Better to do double entendre than to doublethink.
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DOUBLETHICK - passes the straw test - put a straw in vertically and let go, and see if it remains upright

DOUBT E-THINK - computers are not intelligent

DOUBLET MINK - a close-fitting fur vest

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BIG BROTHER

PRONUNCIATION: (big BRUTH-uhr)

MEANING: noun: An authoritarian person, organization, government, etc., that monitors or controls people.

ETYMOLOGY: After Big Brother, a character in George Orwell’s 1949 novel 1984. The term big brother for an elder brother has been documented from 1809.
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BIG BROTHEL - Th Biggest Little Whorehouse in Texas

PIG BROTHER - one who prefers his soup made from pork stock

BING BROTHER - that would be Bob Crosby

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UNPERSON

PRONUNCIATION: (UHN-puhr-suhn)

MEANING: noun: A person regarded as nonexistent.

ETYMOLOGY: Coined as a noun in George Orwell’s 1949 novel 1984. Earliest documented use: 1646, as a verb meaning to depersonalize or to deprive of personhood. A synonym is nonperson.
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UNDERSON - any male offspring except the oldest (cf. UPPERSON)

GUNPERSON - hyper-protective of he Second Amendment, as he sees it

UMP: E.R., SON - headline for the article about a Little Leaguer who was was hit by a pitch and may have suffered a concussion

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OLDSPEAK

PRONUNCIATION: (OLD-speek)

MEANING: noun: Normal English usage, as opposed to propagandist, euphemistic, or obfuscatory language.

ETYMOLOGY: From George Orwell’s 1949 novel 1984. Earliest documented use: 1949.
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O LAD, SPEAK - Say something already, kid!

OLDS PEEK - Grab a gander at that antique GM "Rocket 98" !

GOLD'S PEAK - Lessee now, that'd be about $1895 an ounce, back in 2011...

OLEDSPEAK - talk about those new screens made with Organic LEDs

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TITTUP

PRONUNCIATION: (TIT-uhp)

MEANING: noun: A lively movement; caper.
verb intr.: To move in an exaggerated prancing manner.

ETYMOLOGY: Apparently imitative of the sound of a horse’s hooves. Earliest documented use: 1691.
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SITTUP - what you do to develop your abs

TILTUP - what I do so I can see my monitor better

TINTTUP - what she does to her hair so she'll look younger

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ASSIZE

PRONUNCIATION: (uh-SYZ)

MEANING: noun: A session of a court or a verdict or an inquiry made at such a session.

ETYMOLOGY: From Old French asise, from asseoir (to seat), from Latin assidere (to sit), from ad- + sedere (to sit). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sed- (to sit), which also gave us sit, chair, saddle, soot, sediment, cathedral, preside, president, tetrahedron, surcease, assiduous, and sessile. Earliest documented use: 1297.
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ASKIZE - what also aren't cloudy all day at my Home on the Range

APSIZE - how big the program is that I wrote for the smartphone

SASSIZE - dis

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CRUNT

PRONUNCIATION: (krunt)

MEANING: noun: A blow on the head with a club.

ETYMOLOGY: Perhaps of imitative origin. Earliest documented use: 1786.
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CRUENT - present indicative, third person plural of cruer, to designate as authoritative, especially regarding vineyards and viniculture

CORUNT - when there are two tiny little ones in a litter

CRUIT - what you hafta do to a yacht before you can race it

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