Over at Language Monitor, they're predicting the arrival of the one millionth word in English. (As of July 20, we were 11,206 words short of that goal.)
Monitor's prediction led the Empress at The Washington Post Style Invitational (she awards weird prizes to people sending in suggestions) to say this about searching for the millionth word:
... Just to be imperious, the Empress decreed that the word had to end in -ion. Some otherwise good entries turned up too often on Google, such as "comcastration," getting your cable cut off.
4 Martyration: A request for only 36 virgins in paradise. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)
3 Espanation: Stupidly adding a vowel at the end of an English word to try to talk to a Spanish-speaker; e.g., "Which aisle-o has the cerealo?" (Alan Hochbaum, Atlanta)
2 The winner of the "Brechlinker," the Inker with the Barbie head:
Errudition: Comical misuse of big words. "Madam, your dress looks positively superfluous on you tonight," he said with amazing errudition. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village)
And the Winner of the Inker
Percycution: Giving your child a name he will hate for the rest of his life. (Marty McCullen, Gettysburg, Pa.)
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