I like to mess about with tasty lipsmacking words - with ones which look or sound like puddings.
Such words may not all come from the dictionary. Take a juicy one like ‘‘gobblefunk'', which you won't find in your Webster's. ‘‘Gobblefunk'' is a language - a vocabulary of 200 odd words which Roald Dahl invented for one of his children's books.
Gobblefunk is a spiffing verb which is also a noun. The verb means to mess around with language - to stick your paw into a wodge of sounds, and pull stuff out to slurp and smoodle into written word.
If you've read your kids The Big Friendly Giant, you'll know Dahl's gobblefunk is made from bits of words he muddled and turned arse about face. Dahl snuffled off this cortal roil a quarter of a century ago, but his words still work.
We can use gobblefunk to quickly get to the heart of Donald Trump. Try this:
‘‘Trump sees himself as a buckswashling hero, but really, he's a gruncious humblecrimp. We may laugh at his rotsome crumpscoddle, his propsposterous hair, and his frothbuggling speeches. But a Trump presidency would be a catasterous disastrophe.
‘‘Trump would give the mad right slimewanglers free reign - and this virmicious knid of bootbogglers would quickly lixivate all Mexicans and Muslims. The rest of us would follow shortly. We'll all be fluckgungled.''
I'd pass this on to the Hillary Clinton speechwriters, but her slimewanglers are almost as grueful.
The first prince of the absurd, spot-on, invented word, was another children's writer, Lewis Carroll. If I may make a poseur pronouncement: I doubt his poem, Jabberwocky, will be bested as a tour de force of neology. (New words). 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Technically, those lines make not a jot of sense. But they seem precise and exactly right, and create a place of slimy dread.
Carroll had his egghead, Humpty Dumpty, decipher the language. Humpty claimed ‘‘brillig'' is around four o'clock when we begin broiling dinner, and a ‘‘borogrove'' is a dishevelled parrot that looks like a mop. A ‘‘tove?'' Well it's a cross between a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. The tove nests under sundials, and eats cheese.
I needed none of this rumpty knowledge. My mind already knew a borogrove is a breed of bloodsucking mangrove.
Gobblefunk is made from suggestive sounds which often carry a hint of grossness - just like some of our best real words. Lecher, moist, grunge, chops, and mucous - all of them manky.
For reasons I can't explain, over the centuries people who worked with horses invented wonderful words. So their steeds have fetlocks, withers and hooves, and jodphured jockeys lift them from rising trots, to canters. Fillies and colts nicker softly to other palominos, sorrels, and dappled greys.
When ill, piebalds and bays come down with bots, colic, and rainrot. These magnificent creatures reside in stables equipped with snaffles, crops, and cruppers.
It's easy to love horses just for the words that surround them.
I wish we used another word - ‘‘gloaming'' - here in the South. It is far fuller than ‘‘dusk''. The gloaming suggests more than a time of day - it sounds like a place you can visit. A softened countryside inhabited by tinkers, lovers, and highwaymen.
Personally, I have a weakness for backformations - for words created by removing affixes. (Yes, I had to look that up).The one I like most is made by taking the ‘‘dis'' from ‘‘disgruntle''.
To ‘‘gruntle'' is a real verb - it's 15th-century, and means to utter a small, pleased grunt. Therefore when we are happy, and amiably satisfied, we are ‘‘gruntled''.
With wider gruntling, the world would become a better place. If Muslim fanatics arose gruntled from their prayer mats; if misogynist and feminist alike could beam into each other's eyes, and softly gruntle; if we could feed pre-match gruntle pills to the Springbok front row.
I'm sorry. We have travelled a distance. I trust that somewhere on this journey you've been gruntled by gobblefunk.
- John Lapsley
