Meaning, Muggled

As you can plainly see, I’ve put the Campbell’s soup can into effect.

I was hoping to have thoughts on the last Harry Potter film up soon, never mind all
the other posts in the pipeline. But of course if wishes were horses I’d be buried under a pile of stallions, mares, foals, ’n’ fillies — and I know too well that just wanting a thing to be does not, in the words of Jean-Luc Picard, to mix my multimedia franchises, make it so. Which brings us to another round of word-verification definitions, those lists of lexicographical alchemy that result from my attempts to conjure a bit of amusing sense from nonsense; for more on the phenomenon, you’re welcome to click through the boldface type above to the page on this blog that explains it and collects the definitions to date, while I try to regroup.

• afenemat — [uh fen uh mat] n. What you lay outside to welcome visitors who insist on entering through the window.

• BenCur — [ben kur] The (sadly unsuccessful) all-dog production of Ben-Hur.

• cacturne — [kak turn] n. Short, romantic piano composition about desert plants.

• cragbio — [krag by oh] n. History of a jutting rock (published, of course, by Tor Books).

• dogroti — [dog roh tee] n. Indian puppy bread.

• errific — [er ih fik] adj. Exceptional at making mistakes.

• halitax — [hah lih taks] 1. n. Tariff imposed on residents of the capital of Nova Scotia. 2. v. Present a hardship due to one’s exceedingly bad breath.

• LavaLad — [lah vuh lad] Member of the Legion of Super-Heroes who can produce and control molten rock.

• multents — [mull tents] pl. n. 1. Tech-speak for “people” (short for multiple entities). 2. Portable cloth shelters pitched for brewing cider.

• pastanan — [pahs tuh nan] n. Mother’s helper whose sole job is to make sure you’re loaded up on carbs.

• salin — [say lin] n. What the Republicans’ last candidate for VP became after turning around to look at Sodom.

• soccusi — [sahk oo zee] phr. How an Italian pardons oneself for daring to refer to you-know-what as “football”.

• tatio — 1. [ta shee oh; tay shee oh] n. Relative amount of one’s skin covered by body art to the amount still free. 2. [tah tee oh] n. Jacques Tati’s patio.

• unpopple — [un pop ull] v. Let your soda go flat.