It’s easy to peer inside the pages of a dictionary to learn the definition of a word.

Old man Webster is indeed a good source of information when it comes to words. But what if there was such a book that took a light-hearted look at certain words, ones where the definition is best interpreted when applying real life situations.

The following are such words:

Gravity – it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law!

Gross ignorance is 144 times worse than normal ignorance.

A clock is a small mechanical device to wake up people without children.

Karaoke: A Japanese word meaning “tone deaf.”

Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back and then sings about it. (Note: that’s what I imagine as the real meaning of the word….I’ve never attended an opera.)

Racial prejudice is a pigment of the imagination.

“Normal”: A setting on a washing machine.

Health is the slowest possible rate of dying.

Poverty means having too much month left at the end of the money.

Boy: A noise with dirt on it.

Sleep is that fleeting moment just before the alarm goes off.

Cynic: Someone who smells the flowers and looks for the casket.

Witlag: The delay between delivery and comprehension of a joke.

A skier is a person who pays an arm and a leg to break either one (or both) of them.

Coffee can be a delightful eye-opening beverage, but in whacky terms it’s a person who is coughed upon. I guess that means a coffette is a female that has been coughed upon.

Ever felt flabbergasted? That means you’re appalled over how much weight you have gained.

Flatulence is the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller. And there you go thinking it meant something entirely different.

Balderdash is a rapidly receding hairline. That word exits my mouth every morning when that person stares back at me in the bathroom mirror.

Pokemon is a Jamaican proctologist.

An oyster is a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.

Abdicate: to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

Esplanade: to attempt an explanation while drunk.

Negligent describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie.

Lymph: to walk with a lisp.

Gargoyle is an olive-flavored mouthwash.

Rectitude is the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.

Circumvent is the opening in the front of boxer shorts.

Frisbeetarianism is a belief that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.

An arbitrator is a cook that leaves Arby’s to work at McDonalds.

Do you know what a bull fighter tries to do…..avoidable.

Counterfeiters are workers who put together kitchen cabinets.

Eyedropper: A clumsy ophthalmologist.

Heroes: What a guy in a boat does.

Paradox: Two physicians.

Pharmacist: A helper on the farm.

Relief: What trees do in the Spring.

Selfish: What the owner of a seafood store does.

And lastly, one that I’m very familiar with…Rubberneck: What you do to relax your wife.

 

Cal Bryant is Editor of Roanoke-Chowan Publications. He can be reached at cal.bryant@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7207.