Finally, after way too much deliberation, and with a display of unbridled and shameful pusillanimity, I am happy to announce the winner(s) of the Word Verification Competition, which you might recall I set some time last century, it seems.
Having guffawed at regular intervals, it would perhaps be invidious to pick just one list. So here, with the help of Julia at Homemade Hilarity, is a compilation of many of our favourites.
Ficti – A really, really short story.
Dosphot – A deft kick in the gonadular region by a horse/zebra/unicorn. (High fives both for ‘gonadular’ and for getting unicorns into the equation).
Eric:
Milaro – Italian for ‘I caught malaria’.
(and a special mention for Cystral – a skin blemish caused by being outside during windy season in southern France, particularly around the Les Baux area. (Much impressed with the subtly brilliant meteorological reference here).)
Alex:
Gothucki – Type of spicy sushi found only in South Louisiana.
Cystral – Cheap alternative to real crystal, used predominantly by The Chandelier Hour on the Shopping Channel.
Cora:
Panore – Being bored with your crappy old kitchen pans and desiring new ones.
Gothucki – an angry person with a speech impediment…
Gothucki – The anticlimactic feeling experienced by a theme convention attendee whose handcrafted Anime costume won accolades and applause during the day’s events, but now feels quite ridiculous on public transit.
Lingst – The creeping prickle that marks the moment when you greeted a workmate with “Hi, Lisa”, when her name is Margaret and you’ve known her since childhood.
Milaro – The word that you stuff into a song repeatedly when you have forgotten the lyrics, but have made such a show of loving it so dearly that you don’t want to risk having your friends think you are musically insincere.
Squid – Marine cephalopods of the order Teuthida that are the biggest mistake a home aquarium afficionado can possibly make.
On reflection, I suppose that tearing open the gold envelope has in fact revealed an overall winner, by dint of being quoted most. So step up and take a bow, Cooper Green; but make the speech a short one if you would. Here, thanks to the lovely Soda & Candy, is your splendid award. (Seriously – thanks S & C; it’s terrific).
Coming very soon – the Hemingway result.
Thanks to you guys for hosting this, very fun and hilarious results all around! And props to Soda for sending people over, she deserves the award herself that she recently made.
there seems to be an awful lot of Hemingway mentions on various blogs lately. and the worst part is, it isn’t me!!
Oh, all such brilliant entries, and such a brilliant idea. Well done to everyone – I cracked up over pretty much every definition! But clearly Cooper Green’s prolific inner lexicographer was the hero of the day. Genius.
Special lurve should also be directed Soda’s way – I mean, would you look at that award? Pure, unadulterated awesome.
And poor Tenny. We’ll have to find a way to mention him in passing conversation so he doesn’t feel left out of the Hemingway goodness.
Yay! It looks hot.
I must visit Cooper Green’s blog!!!
Bless you, Mr. Henry, I am positively cystral with glee. This wonderful website is great fun, and even more so when there are prizes. Soda & Candy, thank you as well, for the creative koi you’ve crafted. I’ll post it proudly.
Yay! Congratulations to S&C, and thanks to her as well for directing me to this excellent blog!
Ah, sadly I chanced up your blog too late to see this when it was announced. And after writing my own Verifyers Dictionary back in January too! But a comment left by one of my readers to that post leads me to suggest another possible contests that you might hold: to ask your readers to compose a poem or short story from verification words (with a reasonable number of simple English words allowed, to give a bit of structure). Something along the lines of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, or at least the opening stanza:
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Just a thought!
Hi, Simon.
Thanks for dropping by. I looked up your Verifyers Dictionary — excellent!
And I very much like your idea for a contest … I’ll give that some serious thought and planning.
Thanks,
GHenry.