Dictionary "B"

BABY TALK (from) new parents. Neolinguistics spoken to infants. Born of great affection and the humor of listening to infants mimic, it infortunately brings about the greater difficulty of reteaching children how to speak correctly. No such corrective action is taken as regards the parents, however, and they are free to speak baby talk to each successive, and unsuspecting, child.

BAD (from) Old English b‘dan, to compel, afflict. A Neo-American relativistic dialectic for "good." An antietymopathism.

BAN THE BAN ON THE BAN ON THE BOMB (from) Anti-nuclear peaceniks. A group that will form in protest of the Ban the Ban on the Bombniks.

BANKRAPTURE (from) Old Danish banke (sandbank) + Latin raptus, rapt, from rapere, to seize. US Governmental deregulation of the banking industry gave S & Ls banklike freedom to make risky investments (big losses) which has led to the current crisis. Emergency reregulation of the bank biz has resulted in the nationalization of S & Ls, bank seizures, or, bankrapture. It is difficult to tell by looking at the exterior if a bank is ruptured or not, but by looking at the faces of the bankers, it is easy to tell that they are raptured by the bucks.

BANKRUPTCY (from) Italian banca rotta, "broken counter." Formerly, a sign of trouble wherein one's possessions were distributed among one's creditors. Currently, due to "improved" tax laws, an opportunity to continue business without having to pay one's creditors until business is good again, if ever.

BASEBALL (from) Americans. Various ball games wherein male participants demonstrate their baseness.

BEARD (from) Latin barba. An IndoEuropean symbol (along with the axe) for patriarchal authority. The hair that is cut off in the morning by those zealots who expect to see religious icons on Sunday of a nearly nude, fair skinned Christ with long blonde hair and a shaved face.

"The man with a beard is more than a youth, and he that has none is less than a man." -- Shakespeare

BEE (from) Old English, beo. Winged insects of the order Hymenoptera (literally "membrane-wing"). I have read that in some early religious beliefs the soul leaves the body in the form of a bee. Others believed that bees were the reincarnation of lunar nymphs. Bees, like termites, are social creatures that accomplish nothing alone, little in small groups, yet can affect the whole world in large groups.

BEER (from) women in early agriculture. Not to be confused with the chemical buy products of modern brewery-like laboratories.

"Religions change, beer and wine remain." -- Hervey Allen

BELL (from) Alexander Graham's last name. A familiar mechanical alarm affixed to the telephone that has been replaced by one of Bell's competitors, Telemoto Buzz.

BELTLOOP (from) Overindulgence. Body jerk from huge belt of liquor that throws one for a loop. Strong drinks obtainable in the many bars on the loop around town (like Hugeston).

BIBLE (from) Greek bublos, papyrus, scroll, book, after Bublos, Phoenician port from which the Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. Shortly after Moses and the Israelites led pursuing Egyptians into a water trap, Egyptian scribes wrote an account of the exodus of the Hebrews and delivered a copy to chief scribe Ezra. Ezra had been appointed by the Pharaoh to assemble the exodus story with all other known historical legends and texts, the likes of which amounted to over six thousand volumes. Of the many, less than one hundred have survived several rewritings to become the favorite Christian text, Bible. Like Phoenicia, the Egyptian origin of Bible no longer exists.

BIRTH (from) Old Norse burdh. A natural process formerly attended by experienced women and angels. Once considered to be a miracle, it is now the last stage of the disease pregnancy. When women were finally educated to the fact that they must "bear their children in pain", men calling themselves physicians and obstetricians were able to convince them that help was available in the form of pain relieving drugs, but only in the last sixty years.

"I was born in Texas because my mother wanted me to be near her." -- Roger Henry

BLACK HOLE n. Formerly, Black Hole of Calcutta. A dungeon where British prisoners died in 1756. A military lockup. Now, an astronomical lockup. A scientific stab in the dark at uncertainty, the only known factor being "all space is pink on the inside."

BOOK (from) Old English boc, written document. One of the most unusual things humans do is attribute supernatural powers to otherwise normal objects.

BOYCOTT (from) A refusal to buy or use. [After Charles C. Boycott, d. 1897, land agent for the Earl of Erne, County Mayo, Ireland, who was ostracized by the tenants for refusing to lower the rents.] Our greatest power is our power to choose. When the people of a neighborhood or nation decide that they will no longer tolerate certain conditions, abuses, or prices imposed by commerce and The Bureaucracy, their refusal to play the game changes, or ends, the game. It is sometimes a difficult process to control major corporations that supply food, energy and weapons, but it soon may need be done.

BREATH (from) Old English br‘th, odor, exhalation. Along with a giving heart, the only other necessary part of PRAYER.

BRIBE (from) Old French briber, brimber, to beg. Anything offered to influence or persuade. To corrupt by bribery. Who was begging in the first place?

BRILLIANCE (from) Latin beryl < Greek berullos, probably from Velur (modern Belur), city in southern India. Exceptional clarity and ability of intellect or invention. To the degree that it afflicts us, brilliance is something we are expected to capitalize on in the land of opportunity.

"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency." -- Eugene McCarthy

BROACH (from) Latin brocca, a spike. A reamer, a gimlet for tapoing casks. To break into for the purpose of taking something. What's a broker to do? Who will be broken? What will be taken?

BROKER (from) keg tapper.

BROWN WITH ENVY (from) Green with envy. Jealous regard for those regions which are still ecologically balanced and green. A growphobia prevalent in land developers and commercialists that see only the growth of the greenback.

BUDGET (from) Old French bougette, diminutive of bouge, leather bag, from Latin bulga, from Gaulish. The leather bag to which our tax dollars are appropriated hangs hidden behind the same shaggy wool garment that is used to cover our eyes when we start looking for that which constitutionally belongs to Us the People. It is significant that animal skins became bureaus and budgets. Cows are scalped for purses, sheep are scalped for garments, and we are scalped because we can be. Like cattle and sheep, we don't seem to have the power to stop it.

BUREAU (from) Old French bure, coarse woolen stuff (from) Late Latin burra, shaggy wool garment. A government department or office.

BUREAUCRAT (from) Literally, the power of the bureau. One with the power to pull the wool over someone else's eyes.

BUSINESS (from) Old English bisig, busy. Some folks are just busy, and some things are done because they can be, not because it's good for the business, employees, or the community.

"Nothing is illegal if a hundred businessmen decide to do it." -- Andrew Young

BUY-PRODUCT (from) commerce. Something purchased while shopping for something else. Most often used in the plural, and commonly presented subliminally in large department stores. For example, "He will buy product A, she will buy product B, they will buy products they C."

BY-PRODUCT (from) commerce. Something produced in the making of something else, and written off as a loss before being sold at a profit. Formerly considered waste product, now commonly sold as food additives, atomic fuel, gasoline, and lawn chemicals.

BYE-PRODUCT (from) commerce (from) English bye, shortened form of good-bye, contraction of God be with you, + product. For example, "If you buy some commercial by-products, then God be with you."

1/16/98