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Posts Tagged ‘Crazy’

Flabberdegasky

verb. Flabbergast, or perhaps Verklempt.

I lay like a log, Quite flabber-de-gasky’d, as sick as a dog!
New Monthly Magazine (1822)

No, the OED didn’t use Verklempt in their definition. I wish they had. English words are much funnier when they can only be defined in Yiddish. Nu?

This is the type of word that I would be proud to use while sober. Drunk people, like this writer for New Monthly Magazine, have an endlessly entertaining vocabulary.

Flabberdegasky is probably the next step after flabbergast. Coming home to find that your stereo was stolen is flabbergasting. But coming home to find that the entire place has been swept, dusted, vacuumed, and cleaned is flabberdegasky, flabberdegaskifying, and flabberdegaskificatory!


Nebulochaotic

adj. Hazily confused.

The altogether nebulochaotic condition of her mind.
Mary Marston, George Macdonald (1881)

I don’t think the OED definition above does justice to the potential of this word. We have ‘nebulo’ as in ‘nebulous,’ meaning hazy, foggy, cloudy, and ‘chaotic’ which you already know. That’s what your morning is like when you hit snooze a few too many times — also known as “pandemornium.”

So the two parts together suggest to me, “Cloudy chaos.” That’s not just hazily confused, that’s trying to play ping-pong in a tornado. The “altogether nebulochaotic condition of her mind” must have been very dangerous for all those around her.

Next time you’re having a nebulochaotic moment, remember: don’t blame me for it.