Thursday, January 10, 2013

Uxbridge Dictionary



I came of age during the heyday of The Rocky and Bullwinkle show, waiting anxiously for this week's Fractured Fairy Tales. The Fractured Fairy Tales recreated many of childhood's best loved fairy tales often with a twist you saw coming from the opening line, and would have been sorely disappointed at any other conclusion. The Tales operated on multiple levels of absurdity, each highlighted by the inimitable voice of Edward Everett Horton. I owe FFT creator A. J. Jacobs many thanks for leading me down the path less traveled, seeking the odd unusual and absurd in most everything.

My long suffering family indulges my longing for the odd by frequently gifting unusual dictionaries. For Christmas this year I received The New Uxbridge English Dictionary,18th Edition (precisely) Comprehensively Reviled: the dictionary which contains words soon to be used in a Major Motion Picture.

The Uxbridge which now lives along such classics as The Devil's Dictionary, The American Heretic's dictionary, Deeper Meaning of Liff, More Deeper, et al. includes redefined words such as

Chinchilla: air conditioned beard.
Benign: what it will be after 8.
Chiropractice: getting ready to go to Egypt
Hailstone: formal greeting for Sir. Mick.
Magistrate: Madge isn't a lesbian.

Need more? I've got a million of 'em, or better yet try it on line.

Toad

3 comments:

preppyplayer said...

Love the play on words!

Anonymous said...

Dear Toad,
Fractured Fairy tales was a favorite of mine, too. You might get a kick out the Dictionary of American Regional English. It is costly but your library may have it. And there are some fun quizzes available online which beat working ANYday.
Douglas in Philadelphia

http://dare.news.wisc.edu/quiz/

Patsy said...

Oh no, now I'm going to spend the rest of the day giggling quietly.