In Which I Attempt to Start a Meme

Two things:

First, my boss' assistant left a candy "24-Days-to-Christmas" calendar on my desk today--and in fact every desk in the company. She left six in our department, which tell you how well anyone around here knows the Writing Dept, as we have only five employees. Not that I'm complaining. Free chocolate and sex should probably not be questioned ... especially if they are on offer simultaneously which was, alas, not the case here (my boss goes for slim blondes--all four of the assistants I've known him to have had--about one per year--have fit that physical profile to a ludicrous degree).

Oddly, I'm not very comfortable with "24-Days-to-Christmas" calendars. As a Catholic boy, I observed Advent in the slipshod fashion adopted by Catholic boys worldwide--I generally swore off sweets or something (for some reason "homework" was never on the list of options) for four weeks. Or for at least as long as I remembered.

But these calendars seem to take what is a meaningful tradition for a subset of humanity, and outright appropriate it for strictly commercial purposes. I have similar, though not-so-strong feelings about Christmas itself. I guess they're less strong because Christmas itself was essentially expropriated for Christian purposes.

Still--free choccies.

Secondly. I have, along with most of you, noticed that the word verification tool now occasionally throws up meaningful words or syllables, along with the nonsense stuff.

People now post the WV word, on occasions when it fits the topic at hand. For example, one one thread I got the word "buggy" when commenting on either a computer problem or an automotive issue.

So here's the idea: Rather than post when the word makes sense, take the word you're given and offer a definition for it. Best offer wins the coveted Metro No-Prize.

I'll start with this, from a reply I posted to another blog:

"Quithy"
(adj) Of an expression used by someone else on a comment thread: To sum up masterfully in a single sentence the point you laboured half-an-hour and used three hundred words to make.