Friday, December 12, 2008

Neologism of the Day Dept

The guys at work were discussing the (apparently) pressing issue of whether George W. Bush should really be considered a Texan, the majority of the Texans present arguing that Texas ought not be blamed for him. Then one of the guys mentioned something about Dubya's being a "philanthroper."

Now so far as I know, this isn't actually a word; but in my opinion it certainly ought to be. The only question, then, is: what should the word "philanthroper" mean? Personally, I would define it as follows:

Philanthroper, n. A smooth-talking gentleman who goes from one charitable organization to another seducing all the naive young female volunteers.

The only problem is that Carter seems to think that, whatever a philanthroper is, Dubya is one of them, and...um...how can I put this delicately? Let's just say the imagination boggles:

[now imagining Dubya with a black pencil moustache and a cape, kissing a lady's hand and saying breathily, "Allow me to introduce myself, seƱorita. I am" -- he pauses for dramatic effect -- "Don Dubya!"]

P.S. After posting this, it occured to me to go check to see whether perhaps philanthroper is actually a word and I'm just exposing the limitations of my vocabulary. It seems to be half and half: there's no entry for philanthroper at dictionary.com, but if you google the term you find that a whole lot of people use it as a synonym for philanthropist. So give it ten years or so and it'll probably make the dictionaries.

It'll just make the dictionary with the wrong definition, that's all.

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