Baubles and Bibelots

As stubborn and independent as I am, I find it's really hard to ignore "what everyone else is doing" (and also, apparently, the impulse to put random quotation marks around things). So naturally, when the True Blood/Sookie Stackhouse phenomenon hit, I was curious... but was hesitant to jump on any bandwagon until I was sure they had strong enough oxen to cross the rivers and no scurvy (Oregon Trail reference? Anyone??... alright fine never mind). After exhausting my options (also known as running out of Harry Potter books to read), I gave in and began reading the series. Ok, so I kind of ended up enjoying it (if you call reading 7 out of 9 200+ page books in about 2 months). NERD ALERT.

As the fellow readers of this series may know, the author often repeats things from book to book - I assume for the lunatics who read the book series out of order (enter OCD hyperventilation). One of the things that is mentioned repeatedly is the fact that Sookie Stackhouse uses a Word-of-the-day calendar.

Recently, (I started a new paragraph in hopes to prove to myself that it was unrelated) I subscribed to the Dictionary.com Word-of-the-Day email. (Would that be categorized as obsessed? I hope not. Coincidental, I think - its hard to tell these days with all the media messages flying around. In my mind, it's more of a self bequest to learn more words and be part of yet another email distribution list for an endless flow of goobna into my inbox - I swear, I really just thought it was a good idea.)

Today's word: Bibelot. Synonym: Trinket.

Do we really need another word to describe little pieces of unnecessary material possessions? I think they run out of words to use and coin new ones. It's funny too because even as I'm typing this new "Word-of-the-Day," the spellchecker doesn't recognize that its a valid word. Well, it stems from the word Bauble, which someone probably also made up. Why do they have to use such crazy words for the "Word-of-the-Day" anyway? How about they give the workhorses of the English language some respect? What about the word "the"?

It doesn't make sense, but since I can't avoid it, here is my list of made up words:

sharqot - laughing with your eyes closed
weakum - the almost inaudible noise the air through your closed window makes when driving
dringo - layered necklace
tlipus - hot sauce mixed with mayonnaise

Feel free to use them. Sharquahaha.