WASHINGTON POST'S STYLE INVITATIONAL WORD PLAY

Each year the Washington Post's Style Invitational asks readers to take
any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing
only one letter and supply a new definition. Here are the 2002 winners:

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you
realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Giraffiti: Vandalism painted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic and the person who
doesn't get it.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit).

Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad
vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious
bummer.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they
come at you rapidly.

And, the winner of the Washington Post's Style Invitational:

Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an a**hole.




New Information Support Keywords for 2003
Essential additions for the workplace vocabulary:

BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was
missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on
everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and
advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.

PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube
farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and
whiney.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an
electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the
rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often
profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed
to solve.

OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realise that
you've just made a BIG mistake

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