Head Strong | First it was a faux pas, now it's a new word

July 29, 2007

By Michael Smerconish

 

I've launched a campaign to coin a word.

 

My word is hatriolic. And now I think the odds of getting it into the dictionary are ginormous.

 

Merriam-Webster just adopted ginormous, an adjective based on the combination of gigantic and enormous, and meaning extremely large or humongous, for its 2007 version. It's also adding Bollywood, smackdown and crunk.

 

All it takes is usage. If people say it enough, it makes the list. According to research published on http://www.firstmention. com, a Google news archive search revealed that ginormous was used in 540 different articles in 2006 alone. It's been around longer than that. Ginormous is believed to have first been uttered around 1948, when it was a slang term used by members of the British military in the years after World War II.

 

My word doesn't have that pedigree. I've been saying hatriolic for just a few years. I think I created it. With clear conscience, I say I have no knowledge of having Bidened anyone else's speech.

 

I'd like to tell you my original use was intentional, but, truth be told, it was a faux pas. I would have gotten away with it, but somebody at the New Yorker captured my mistake and listed it among examples of gibberish induced by election fatigue in the 2004 cycle. ("On CNN, a conservative radio-talk-show host named Michael Smerconish, called on by Anderson Cooper to respond to a segment with Michael Moore, said that Moore was 'motivated by hatriol.' ")

 

Now I kind of like it, so much so that I have recruited a campaign manager for my effort to get hatriolic in circulation: Peter Meltzer. He's the Neil Oxman of wordsmiths, and author of The Thinker's Thesaurus. Peter suggested that our platform be based on the fact that hatriolic has no one-word equivalent.

 

"Thus, it promotes economy of expression, in the same way that there is no one-word equivalent for bloviate" - another word of recent popularity - "which means to speak at length in a pompous manner," Peter told me. I like his rationale. I think I will make him our press secretary, too.

 

Our campaign research has already charted an increase in the use of the word hatriolic since I first coined it - both as a noun and an adjective. Occasionally, I get attribution. There's even a Web site that contains the word itself (http://www.hatriolic.blogspot.com). The blogger behind that site, who calls himself The Hatriolic, says he lives "in the greater Philadelphia area," which is encouraging of my role. So, too, are these examples:

 

In January 2006, another blogger actually attributed hatriolic to me in a post critical of left-wing bumper stickers. The post concluded: "I say it's time we right-minded people start coming up with a few creative, hatriolic (HT [as in "hat tip"] to Michael Smerconish) schtickers of our own!"

 

Then there's Appleinsider.com (http://www.appleinsider.com), site of a 2006 donnybrook concerning George W. Bush's presidency. There, a Bush defender from West Chester featured both the noun and adjective form of my word. The post reads: "It's the hatriolic (as I've said, a made-up but really good word!) words I take exception to. It's calling Bush a loser, a dead beat, a liar, a cheat, a scumbag . . ."

 

And the derivative: "I'm sure the mere mention of [Ann] Coulter will send some into a fury (Boring book, by the way, but once you filter out her craziness and hatriol, it's pretty informative)."

 

And on a Web site about Division III college football (http:// d3football.com), there was even a writer who used hatriolic in arguing that his college team, Dickinson, was better than Ursinus College.

 

My neologistic endeavors won't end with hatriolic. I've got others in the pipeline. See what you think:

 

Hotriolic - Actually a derivative of hatriolic, this word means "hostility toward licentious, beautiful women." Example: "I've been less hotriolic toward Paris Hilton since she did time."

 

Pottified - Well read. Used especially for youth. Example: "The children were pottified by the time they'd completed fifth grade."

 

Knoxed - Denied satisfactory return on a major investment. Example: "I spent $100 on the date, but I got knoxed at the end of the night."

 

Pakisource - Outsourcing of tasks vital to national security at great financial cost and to countries woefully unprepared and uninterested in the job. Example: "Given the success we've had in finding Osama bin Laden, here's hoping the administration doesn't pakisource control of the Mexican border."

 

Wighted - A suburban phenomenon among the nouveaux riches wherein white Christmas lights are hung in such abundance that they overtake colored lights. "Newtown is a wighted community located in picturesque Bucks County."

 

Vicktious - Demonstrating a propensity for stupid cruelty. Example: "He's so vicktious, he'd kill a puppy."

 

Gibstoxication - Inebriation to the point of anti-Semitism. Example: "We all went to see The Passion of the Christ, and on the way home, Mel got busted for gibstoxication."

 

Securistic - Providing the appearance of security without actually making anyone truly secure. Example: "The Transportation Security Administration is acting securistic in allowing shampoo in air travelers' carry-on bags only in amounts of 3 ounces or less."

 

Iraqnaphobia - Fear of news reports from the Middle East. Example: "Some Republican congressmen have succumbed to their Iraqnaphobia in recent weeks."

 

If it all pans out, I will be in good company. Sir Winston Churchill, who coined locust years to refer to a period of economic hardship, is among the many who have invented their own words. Alfred Hitchcock is associated with the word MacGuffin, used to mean a device that helps propel the plot in a story but is of little importance otherwise.

 

And H.L. Mencken coined bibliobibuli to refer to someone who reads too much.

 

Michael Smerconish's column appears on Thursdays in The Daily News and on Sundays in Currents. Michael can be heard from 5:30 to 9 a.m. weekdays on "The Big Talker," WPHT-AM (1210). Contact him via the Web at http://www.mastalk.com.