The Magic Word is...

I am a Word Slut. That is I have an unusual fascination with words and their etymology. I think most people who call themselves "writers" do, and I do so hesitatingly. 

Being a Word Slut hasn't necessarily served me well. Apart from certain Jeopardy categories where it comes in handy. And on these blog pages, where I get to exercise a certain muscle for vocabulary that was often frowned upon in advertising copy.

I once kicked up quite a storm because I used the word panoply in a PayPal ad. I was unceremoniously raked over the coals for being too erudite. I look back on the days when I pissed off middle managers at PayPal with great fondness.

Ms. Muse also happens to be a Word Slut. 

Unlike me, she is a voracious reader. But we often attempt to dazzle each other with odd word choices. And sometimes, because she is smarter than me, I have found I'd being using a word incorrectly for so many (embarrassing) years. For instance, I always thought someone with a mercurial temperament meant they were excessively harsh or given to fits of temper, until I came to realize it meant being wishy washy.

You live and learn.

She is also fond of creating new words. For instance, there's "nagivate", which has an onomatopoeia-quality to it. It means to dish out unwanted driving directions while seated in the passenger seat.

While Ms. Muse has been sharing new words with me I've been schooling her in certain Yiddishisms, that even a woman who has worked in the entertainment industry has not heard. 

Recently, she and her friends performed a very good deed for someone in need. 

Living up in the foothills these days, that comes in handy. I told her she had done a Mitzvah. A Shiksa Mitzvah, if you will. Then, to prove she is not the only one who can manufacture new words, I suggested that Shiksa + Mitzvah = Shiksvah, a good deed for a fellow man/woman/child performed by a Gentile.

But it didn't stop there. 

I was recently explaining how I had called the police to look into a distressing situation with my last disruptive neighbors, an elderly woman living at home with her two functional/dysfunctional grown sons, who fight like angry cats and angrier cats. I just discovered they have hired a nurse to help with the mom's increasing dementia. If not for my phone call I doubt that would have happened.

Hence, a mitzvah for white trashy people = A Shitsvah.

What about telling a fellow altakocker in the sauna, "Getting a little furry back there, Murray, Maybe it's time to have that sweater sheered?" That would be a Shvitzvah.

You see where this is going. Well, I hope you do cause I don't, I just needed a bout of distraction while our country burns down on all sides. That would be a Shanda.