Snort, Snork, Shtick Shtuff

"What's a vegan smoothie?" asked my brother-in-law, reading the countertop menu at a favorite Sunday morning coffee shop. "I mean, what could you put into a smoothie that wouldn't be vegan?" The silliness started as we waited in line for coffee. Sometimes you need a break from weighty discussions of life, the universe and everything. Life can't always be serious.

"A tenderloin?" I suggested, "Blood sausage? Pig feet?" I pictured traumatized vegan kitchen workers splattered by a bloody manic food processor. My brother-in-law and I are not reincarnations of comedic word guru, George Carlin, but Sunday morning walks sometimes turn into word play sessions between us. Both of us find the disparity between denotation and connotation interesting. My wife usually stays out of our discussions when we are on a roll. Just as well at times.

Once seated with the vegan smoothies ("Tastes a little like chicken"), we talked about the many odd nonsense words that are made up of "S" plus a consonant, a single vowel, and one or two letter consonant combinations. What is the attraction between "S" and silly words? I don't know, but there seems to be a link. We agreed words with real meanings (swap, swim, smit, snuff) don't count. Alright, "snuff" might count because it leads to the logical past tense "snuft" as an irregular form or just "snuffed" as a regular verb. We might be silly, but we try to be grammatical.

"Snert" "What's that?" "I think it was the name of a comedy sketch character on the Milton Berle Show." "Before my time." Yeah, mine too."

"Smurf." Too easy we agreed. Not as old as the Milton Berle Show, but just as silly. Especially in blue. "How can they do a movie about them?" "Don't know and don't care. They're as creepy as garden gnomes."

"Snork." A sort of word, depicting a healthy appetite, emblematic of college days. Other college slang included "scuzz," "smat," and "schwip." Definitions? Don't ask. Frat house slang is not PG-13.

"Swup?" No reply. A word that has yet to find a popular meaning. Sad when you think about an orphan word peering up from an empty grammatical bowl. "Pleashh shur, may I have shome more?"

"S'up?" "Words with apostrophes are not acceptable." " Yeah, especially those from ad campaigns." "S'right you are." "Ha. Humor."

I pulled a napkin from beneath my smoothie and began making notes. "What are you doing?" "I could use these ideas for my blog if I run out of material during the summer break."

"Schmuck." Good idea. I'll add that too.