Vacation Elbow - the ability of your father to reach into the very back seat of the mini van and smack you while still driving.
Getro rules. That’s an awesome term.
This halloween I was pimp, and drive my girlfriend crazy with two sniglets:
Pimptacular
and
Pimpadelic
neither of which need to be defined, because if you hafta ask, baby, you’ll nevah know.
Masturwaiting– Jerking off to pass the time or for a lack of anything better to do.
I am going to sneak that into a memo at work and see if anyone notices. (“Our demipygean efforts will show us no little modicum of success.”)
I’ve already described someone as being on medical leave with “arthripoidal invasion of the lower alimentary canal” (“having a bug in one’s butt”), but I think that will go over much better.
Hyper-nerd mode on.
The words listed in the original post were indeed “genuine” Sniglets.
Hyper-nerd mode off.
By the Way, does anyone know anything about a book called Grosslies or some such thing, which was sort of a cross between Sniglets and Totally Tasteless Joke books. Came out about the same time.
Cordially,
Myron M. Meyer
The Man Who
Speaking of words that don’t exist, a quote from Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack from Salon.com regarding ballots with no vote for president:
“I can speak only, obviously, to the Iowa situation. There is no accurate count of any undervote for the state of Iowa. The figure that you’re quoting, I believe, is a guesstimate on the part of the Iowa state Republican Party … I’m not certain, and I’ve not seen any specific definitive proof that indeed undervoting took place.”
Everything you’ve ever heard about Iowa is true. Guesstimate. Jeez.
Cordially,
Myron M. Meyer
The Man Who
And that goes double for South Dakota.
Friction. Anyone here read Jeff Noon’s Automated Alice?
…was “The Meaning of Liff” by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. The book seems to be out of print these days, but… um… you can pretty easily find the text of it online. Ain’t gonna give you any URLs because it’s there illegally. You folks are enterprising, though. You’ll find it.
All the words are real place names from around the world, many of them very strange, which have been given new definitions. Best part of the book are the cross references:
Kirby: Small but repulsive piece of food prominently attached to a person’s face or clothing; chipping ongar (q.v.).
Kirby Misperton: One who kindly attempts to wipe a kirby (q.v.) off another’s face with a napkin, and then discovers it to be a wart or other permanent fixture, is said to have committed a “kirby misperton.”
Chipping Ongar: The disgust and embarrassment (or “ongar”) felt by an observer in the presence of a person festooned with kirbies (q.v.), when they don’t know them well enough to tell them to wipe them off. Invariably this ongar is accompanied by an involuntary staccato twitching of the leg (or “chipping”).
Yate: Dishearteningly white piece of bread that sits limply in a pop-up toaster during a protracted throcking (q.v.) session.
Throcking: The act of continually pushing down the lever on a pop-up toaster in the hope that you will thereby get it to understand that you want it to toast something.
Throckmorton: The soul of a departed madman: one of those now known to inhabit the timing mechanisms of pop-up toasters.
Burnt Yates: Condition to which yates (q.v.) will suddenly pass without apparent intervening period, after the spirit of the throckmorton (q.v.) has finally been summoned by incessant throcking (q.v.).
Only a couple of these have made it far enough into my vocabulary that I actually remember to use them when the ocassion arises:
Ranfurly: Fashion of tying ties so that the long thin end dangles below the short fat end.
and
Bogue: The expanse of skin that appears between the top of your socks and the bottom of your trowsers when you sit down. “The Duke of Ilford threw himself onto the chesterfield, brazenly displaying his bogues to the dowager Lady Ingatestone.” - Barbara Cartland, Come Soon, Strange Horseman
George Carlin also pointed out things that have no name about 15 years before Rich Hall.
My favorite has always been the little thing two strangers do when the meet face-to-face and start dancing back and forth trying to get around each other. This has been called the sidewalk shuffle, the concrete quadrille, and (my favorite) the faux pas de deux.
There was a political novel out in the 1970s with the main plot being the President blinded in a Soviet internal assassination-coup and the intrigues and legal wrangling around the then-recent 25th Amendment about removing the President for disability when he doesn’t think he’s disabled. I’m almost sure William Safire wrote it, but I can’t recall the name.
Anyhow, the word I loved from that book was “klong”, defined as the sudden overwhelming feeling of fear and panic when you feel that everything is going well and you have plenty of time and you suddenly remember there was someplace else VERY important that you are supposed to be RIGHT NOW, and it’s nobody’s fault but your own that you aren’t there.
Neil Gaiman asked, through Delerium-
“Is there a word for the precise moment you forget what it felt like to make love to someone you loved a long time ago?”
In a foreward in a later book, the author says yes, that word is called “mercy”.
Maybe not a Sniglet, hmm?
Several years ago I stumbled across a wonderful book called “Family Words”. I bought two copies – one as a gift, and one for me. I’ve not seen the book anywhere since. It’s filled with coinages that are actually USED as private family words. Some people are surprised to learn, years later, that these are NOT words in general use. Some of them do have a range outside a few families, though. They cite “ghost poo” for styrofoam packing material (as noted above), but also add that the cuplike styrofoam packing bits are called “yarmulkettes” by some families.
That explains why my neighbor’s kid used to put them on her Ken doll. (Trimmed down and decorated, and actually a pretty artistic kid.)
You can still get Douglas Adams’ The Meaning of Liff – I just checked on Amazon.co.uk. There’s a sequel, too, The Deeper Meaning of Liff, which I have and highly recommend! Unfortunately I don’t have it handy to quote, but it’s thoroughly enjoyable.
Guesstimate is in my dictionary. It’s what is known as a portmanteau word, one that is formed by blending two other words. Chortle, for instance, is a blend of chuckle and snort. Fugly is another one (heh heh).
My favorite Sniglet was “yurrmommerating” – that’s when you try to read the lips of the basketball coach who is cussing out the referee.
Is it a guess, or is an estimate? Figure that one out, huh? 
Anyway, Before the Meaning of Liff there was Brave New Words. And before Brave New Words there was Burgess Unabridged, which dates from very early in the 1920’s. I’m doing a brief report on the history of the “Sniglet,” (this is why, if anyone can direct me to a copy of “Grosslies”, see above, please let me know.) and I greatly appreciate the remarks in this thread.
And just to dump on Iowa again (it’s fun, kids!) In The Deeper Meaning of Liff, Douglas Adams gives the name for the two ridges running under the nose (you know, in the philtrum area) as Des Moines.
Truly high comedy at its finest.
Cordially,
Myron M. Meyer
The Man Who
Of course, in Iowa they can probably tell the submit button from the preview button. Jeez.
For a question like this, as is so often true, the Simpsons provides a pearl of wisdom.
Mrs. Krabapple: I never heard the word ‘embiggens’ before I came to Springfield.
Ms. Hoover: I don’t see why not. It’s a perfectly cromulent word.
I’m probably not to the first person to think of this word, but . . .
Whenever I’m too hungry for sweets and just have to eat ice cream before dinner, I call it “pressert.”
I guess it’s kind of an estimate (heh).