Dysphemisms

I suppose our family's Thanksgiving fare is as run-of-the-mill as anything else...except perhaps the plethora of pickles. ;) (Here's to us, fellow pickle princesses (and the odd prince)!)

The post-dinner conversations, however, are another story entirely. Other than the odd hockey reference, the conversation is dominated by determining how to start to attack the discombobulation that is our immigration system (no elaboration is necessary), and what game we are going to play next (in this case, Ticket to Ride - Europe).

So this Thanksgiving, the conversation inevitably turned to music, and we were musing about how although, admittedly, the Black-Eyed Peas have some serious beats going, their lyrics are possibly the lamest ever. For example, using "lovely lady lumps" as a descriptor for female secondary sex characteristics? Please! What is more unattractive than a "lump?" (Have you ever heard of anything less appealing? Or heard a "lump" being referred to as anything positive? Lumps are too-large cottage cheese curds. Lumps are cancer tumors. Lumps are proverbial peas in the proverbial mattress of the Princess. Lumps are uncomfortable!!!!!)

Moving on....we were talking about euphemisms, and how my friend Mikey was always talking about how everybody used euphemisms, and I always teased him that his euphemism was the actual word, euphemism. And then the conversation turned to dysphemisms, which I had to be introduced to, as I was (I am ashamed to admit - sometimes my self-education has rather large holes in it which I have determined to begin afresh to fill in, but that is another story for another blog post). Being the people that we are, we rarely use dysphemisms in our day-to-day speech.

Being the applicator of knowledge that I am (in the hopes of retaining as much as possible), I was trying to figure out when I would ever be party to a dysphemism, and then, it hit me. My eyes lit up, and my finger went up in the air in an "aha!" moment. "I know! LUMPS!"

She can be taught!!!