How to Rectify Your Limpid Dinguses or Words that Sound Dirty But Aren't

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by Carrie Bailey

I like to write about seamen:

"Capt. One Peg ordered the sailor to 'Finish masticating that kumquat then fashion a sextant out of those there faggots.'"

Hmm...

Kumquats photo by supercookie33

I can use these words because I know their meaning. Put another way Capt. One Peg said, “Finish chewing that fruit and make a navigational device from those bundles of sticks.” But, that’s not what you were thinking and it’s not what I was thinking either. I’m not even sure what I was thinking. I guess I was just glad the Captain give the instructions wasn’t a Rear Admiral shouting from the poop deck.

"The crochety old man with the broken coccyx from Bangkok was observing your Uranus."

This one is also entirely innocent! It means that, more or less, “The peevish old guy from a city in Thailand who broke his tailbone was gazing at the seventh planet from the sun.” An astronomer with an unfortunate injury shouldn’t be offensive. Certain words can raise an eyebrow and clear room if used thoughtlessly among people in the early stages of their vocabulary development regardless and we should try to be careful...

"The deaf handyman gesticulated that he was busy cleaning a ramrod, ballcock, and nipple when a titmouse startled him, and he pricked a digit."

Getting worse? If you think so, it’s probably best to stop reading, but if you knew that it meant, “The deaf handyman used his hands to sign that he was cleaning a rod used to clear the barrel of a shot gun, a device for regulating the water level of a tank, and a small projection from a machine that drips oil, when a bird startled him and he cut his finger,” well continue…

Maybe you won’t be offended by,

"Balzac and Handcock jaculated the dart over the blowhole."

Because what’s the big deal? I mean, who cares if two men from history threw a dart over a geizer? Don’t we all have more important things to do than consider juvenile word associations?

"It’s fallacious that the beaver are organisms especially prone to deep vein thrombosis."

Honestly, it probably isn’t true that the furry animals with flat tails suffer from the most common cause of strokes. Thankfully, with maturity and experience we don’t grow beyond finding humor in this sort of misuse of vocabulary. In fact, would any educated grown-up bat an eye if at a friend’s house, our host said,

"Oh, please pardon my dictum, but my cockeyed pussy is the titular Regina of this bungalow."

Seriously? To think about it differently than it is wastes time. Anyone can excuse a declaration that a squinty-eyed cat is figuratively queen of the home. People talk about their cats all the time.

But, if you're still concerned about the rectification of limpid dinguses and what to do,  just use the dictionary, because you can't circumscribe a comeuppance for a weak vocabulary.