Via Jason Kottke, I ran across today a column by William Safire entitled “Kiduage” in which he goes over some recent slang neologisms. Some of them, such as “fo shizzle” and “hella,” I was already familiar with (so they must not be so neo, as I’m definitely not up on the trends of youth speech). Other, such as “crunk” (crazy drunk) and “marinating” (replacing “chill out”) I hadn’t run across. I believe I had heard but had forgotten (inexplicably) about “dropping the kids off at the pool,” a phrase for defacation, the vivid and often crude naming of which is one of my guilty pleasures (I’ll spare you examples of my own virtuosic neologisms).

As a bonus, Safire mentions one of my former professors (Connie Eble) as a source he tapped to find some of these phrases. Just a few years ago, I suppose I was one of the students helping to provide examples of such phrases; I believe I recall that Eble had us do a survey or at any rate to provide her with some slang terms we were familiar with.

In A Frolic of His Own, William Gaddis presents a court ruling, with all its suits and counter suits and legal mumbo jumbo, surrounding the problems a piece of sculpture causes a community. If I remember correctly, it’s initially perceived as an eyesore and then traps a dog, so it’s considered a public menace. There’s much todo over ownership of the art and responsibility for the dog’s whereabouts, etc., and it’s really absurdly funny. The details aren’t all the same in this real life situation, but I find the circumstances similarly amusing.