Mother of All Lists

May 1999
Mother of All Lists
By Bob Coskrey

Yesterday in the county library, I was perusing—oh all right, skimming—through The Book of Lists, the 2nd version, by David Wallenchinisky and Amy Wallace. Their first edition in 1977 created a sort of semi-literary structure which certainly had its most famous comedy offshoot in David Letterman’s “Top Ten List.” In fact, I’ve been known to indulge in the art myself….

But I had never seen either of Wallenchinisky and Wallace’s books before.

A lot of the lists are very straight-forward and unfunny, but on the other hand, many are quite humorous, usually unintentionally. Some of the most hilarious, however, have to do with words, as follows:

Obscure and Obsolete Words

MEUPAREUNIA: A sexual act gratifying only to one participant.
Big deal, I though, every pubescent boy is familiar with this , and of course, only on participant is satisfied because there’s only one person participating. DUH!

Another that had special significance for me was RESISTENTAILISM, which is defined as “seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects.” I have witnessed this phenomena over and over again in two things in particular—paper clips and wire coat hangers. Almost every time, when I reach for a paper clip in my desk drawer at my real world job, I pull out two or more of these demonically possessed fasteners that have spent the entire night before linking themselves together during some sort of office supply orgy. I used to curse at hem while I tried for valuable minutes to extricate their wiry limbs, till finally one day I just stopped participating in this fiendish frolic, and threw the entangled irritants into the trash can, joyously envisioning their fiery fate at the local recycling center. And sometimes when I have the distinct notion that I am the only one in the office being singled out for this torturous treatment, I spitefully pass on the love-locked items to an unsuspecting co-worker.

My other inanimate terrorizer, the metal coat hanger, which is obviously related to the paperclip, manifests its disdain for me in a similar fashion, interlocking their hooked heads with one another whenever I try to rip them apart, sending 3 or 4 to the floor, sometimes with an article of clothing attached. I used to suffer this indignity with an attitude of resignation, but after discovering from friends that this was only happening to me, I began to retaliate, picking up each offending hanger and twisting and crushing it into a submissive and harmless sphere of modern art, then maliciously tossing it into the garbage.

My psychiatrist said it’s actually much healthier to project my hostility against inanimate objects, so I figure I’m probably saving myself from some serious jail time.

Another fascinating list was the “Names of Things You Didn’t Know Had Names.”

The word CHANKING means “spat-out food such as rinds or pits,” a term which I’m sure makes the Chung King food company very displeased. A good example of the word’s usage is: “Every Friday Family night, many Goose Creek restaurants have chanking contests. The first family to full up a 3-by-3-foot box wins.”

The word PEEN means the end of a hammer opposite the striking face. This was quite a revelation for me. All these years, I thought the expression was “pain in the ass.” This makes the statement much more descriptive and meaningful.

The most amusing of the word lists, without a doubt, was “Untranslatable Words.”

The Italian phrase CAVOLI RISCALDATI means “the attempt to revive a dead love affair.” Literally, it means “reheated cabbage, which is usually unworkable and messy.”

Very powerful imagery indeed. But the definition seems a bit abbreviated to me. I think it really described an attempt to revive a dead love affair between two people whose only bind was a shared gastrointestinal ailment.

There were 9 other words on the list, most all of which were very funny, but my favorite, I guess because it represents my favorite kind of humor, is the German word SHADDENFREUDE, which is defined as “the joy one feels as a result of someone else’s misfortune, like seeing a rival slip on a banana peel.” God knows how many times I have experience shaddenfreude—not as often as I would have liked to, actually—but I am glad there is a legitimate name for this very human emotion. The only thing that bothers me is that the Germans invented it. I have an unpleasant image of someone a bit more menacing than Colonel Klink yukking it up with a fellow storm-trooper: “Can you believe it, Chamberlain actually believed us when we told him our Panzer Division was a new kind of math.”

I think I’ll postpone using this word until I can verify the time and place of its origin.

I could continue giving you my picks of the various word lists, but that seems too easy and unimaginative, so let me end with my very own addition to the “Obscure and Obsolete Words List”:

ENUZIASM (en-oo-zee-as-im): That overwhelming urge one gets to ch under the car seat and pull out that special equalizer whenever another car nearly kills you by running a red light.

Fortunately, by keeping a ready supply of doomed, yet-to-be-mangled coat hangers on the seat next to me, I have been able to channel my violent musing into less felonious behavior. So far!