On my home web page this week was the subject line, “How to identify Frenemies.” This current portmanteau combines “friend” and “enemy” to create a title for those people you in essence either love/hate or maintain a fake friendship with for selfish purposes. Such neologisms tell much about where society finds itself but also remind us that we are constantly looking for new words to describe our ever changing world. A portmanteau (the French word for suitcase) was first used by Lewis Caroll in “Through the Looking Glass” when Humpty Dumpty explains to
What if we started creating portmanteaus for life in the
- snackmunion –The process by which the Lord’s Supper became the Lord’s Snack.
- sermlongated –The state in which the sermon has continued past its logical conclusion and now intrudes on after church lunch plans.
- hymunknowlogy –The confused state of a song leader who is unable to locate a certain hymn and in some cases the pitch.
- bulletoodling – Random drawings found in the margins of Sunday’s bulletins (not to be confused with bulliter – The folded, wadded, paper-planed and scattered residue of Sunday’s bulletins left in the pews).
- squaide – The high pitched squeal coming from a senior saint’s hearing aide that is worn by the only person who is unaware of its piercing siren.
- handfake – The awkward extension of your hand to shake hands with a brother or sister who brushes it aside to give you a holy hug.
- repipraise – Good intending brothers or sisters who ‘amen’ everything and inadvertently ‘amen’ an ailment or death announcement.
- prayerliché – The use of overused, over-worked, antiquated and often unintelligible clichés in public prayers.
Of course… my intention here is to be humorous but within that humor to ask each of us to look closer at what we do and what we say. Then maybe we can become Snoves – i.e. shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves (Matthew
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