We Are Not Amused!

This is going to be a bundle of laughs! Whoever picked the topic? As an act of kindness, I'll keep it short. The end.

unamusing family portrait

I'm only kidding, of course. But to be serious for a moment, where does that word 'kidding' come from? Let us contemplate 'kidology' for half a mo. The Oxford Academic website has this to say:

"Many a new word has been coined in jest. Scientist was conjured as a facetious term for those engaged in scientific research. Indianapolis was a fanciful suggestion for the name of Indiana’s capital. Software was simply a play on hardware among early computer programmers. Whimsical coinage is especially common in the cybersphere where not just software but crowdsource, blog and blogosphere resulted from insider wisecracking. 

"Playfulness is an ill-appreciated source of neologisms in general. The linguist Allen Walker Read cited “jubilance” as a primary motivation for word creation. The widespread adoption of neologisms that originated as bon mots, punch lines, and flippant remarks generally surprises their coiners as much as anyone. This is more true than ever in a world where language is continually fertilized by whimsical bloggers, wisecracking comedians, and sundry quipsters who are less intent on expanding our vocabulary than on being amusing."

That's right. We bloggers number among the facetious tricksters and irreverent untiers of soberly strait-laced language and we should stand in proud defiance of tight-lipped and po-faced detractors. 'Never Be Boring.'

As for kidding (a noun in gerund's clothing), it can first be found in 1901 in the writing of one Hugh McHugh, a North American humourist, but it's generally accepted as being much older in colloquial parlance, with roots in both to tease and to treat someone as a child - the young being naive and gullible, naturally. And that really is all I've got to say on topic, apart from this slice of poetic silliness...

New Humor Bypass

Friday 13th July 2001, meteorologically propitious,

cloudless skies, hardly a breath of wind. However

not so astrologically auspicious, as events will prove.

Top story of the day: Beijing awarded summer Olympics

seven years hence. Meanwhile in this year of the snake

a four-lane highway is to open. The new Humor bypass

slithers around the historic town with the curious name.

High noon and there's a shimmer off the surface of this

pristine blacktop ribbon as the ceremonial cavalcade

lines up to roll, bunting sweating, engines revving, 

wagons bouncing on their brakes as the Sheriff intones.

A starting gun fires and suddenly  they're off and running

burning rubber, snorting petrochemicals, trailing clouds

of polluted Old Glory as they cleave this brave new route 

across the prairie without the tedium of traffic lights and

all that crosstown gridlock. But wait. Five miles down

the road, a shock. Isn't it funny how a bear likes ruining

man's best laid plans. There's grizzlies sitting all across

the tarmac, fathers. mothers. ancients, cubs, making picnic,

eating honey. toting guns and they're not going anywhere

anytime soon. Bewildered rednecks scowl and honk away

in the cauldron of the afternoon, tempers fizzle, engines

threaten to overheat, mothers scold as children mizzle. 

Of course they are not amused, and not even the arrival

of the AA can remedy the stand-off. As shadows lengthen,

five miles of cavalcade reverses from the rear and heads

off, taillights between its legs, unable to grin and bear it.

To get serious again, as a musical and visual bonus this week, because it's a fitting and moving riposte to the shameful killing of a brave man who stood up to the tyrant Putin, please have a watch of this: Natalia Gevorkyan tribute to Alexei Navalny I have to admit I shed a tear.

Thanks for reading. Embrace jubilance. S ;-)