WARNING: Utterly mundane. Those looking for information or titillation are advised to hit the “next thread” button.
Listening to the news this morning, some NASA guy said they found more evidence of water on Mars but “didn’t find any Martians in hot tubs”, or something to that effect. That got me thinking about the word Martian. It struck me that it is a name for something that doesn’t exist. In times past they were thought to exist, and maybe at some future date colonists to the Red Planet will call themselves “Martians” with a straight face. Edgar Rice Burroughs knew a lot about them and Bugs Bunny occasionally met them (and their dogs).
I was going to start an intelligent response to this.
Then I remembered this is MPSIMS.
To dip a bit into philosophy: simply by pondering something’s existence, it exists, if only in theory/ideas. Depending on what school of philo you accept.
Sdimbert: Yeah, wasn’t there a series of books in the 80’s about ‘sniglets’ - words that don’t exist but should?
My roomates made up a good one once - “Leerio”, which is the fear of messing with someone else’s stereo system - “Uh oh, better not hit the wrong button or I’ll break it somehow.”
How about a word for the experience of biting into food that shouldn’t crunch (for example, a hotdog) and it crunches? Er, besides “EEEUUURRRGGGHHH!”, that is!
[nitpick]
That is not an oxymoron. That is a joke about what an oxymoron is. Military intelligence exists, because I used to work for them. A true oxymoron would be something along the lines of jumbo shrimp, which btw also exist.
Sorry, but people using military intelligence as an example of an oxymoron is a pet peeve; we’ve actually saved some lives you know.
[/nitpick]
I’m pretty sure South Park is a real town, upon which the series was deliberately based. Of course, the two are very different, so your point may still be valid, but far be it from me to let even the tiniest, most unimportant error slip by unmocked!
“Wookydooky Foodoodle”, the probable designation for the upcoming “Moderator Mark III”, the unit set to replace the SDMB “Administrator” (the title for the “Moderator Mark II”).
I had a book years ago which I bought in a cheapy bookstore for 50 pence. It was full of new words, the one I remember is Ardslignish: the behaviour of sellotape when you are tired.
