Sniglets

 A few weeks ago, after the last eastern snowfall, I was clearing the snow from the car with the help of my kids. At one point I asked my nine year old to kick off the fenderbergs. "What's a fenderberg?," he asked. "And did you just make that word up?" Ah, no —I didn't make it up... but Rich Hall did! Remember him? Think 1983, Not Necessarily the News. I told my son that a Fenderberg is a Sniglet. By definition—Sniglet is any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary but should. Having gone to college in Vermont, Fenderbergs—the large glacial deposits that form on the insides of car fenders in snowy weather—were a daily winter reality. The funny word made my son laugh and he wanted to hear more Sniglets. We certainly weren't going to come across any Sniglets in the OED or Websters, but I did know where we could find them in book form (which is more fun than just doing a google search). Sure enough, a comb through my bookshelves uncovered a tattered copy of Sniglets. We had a blast reading through the collection. Here are some of our favorites:

Bursploot: to position one's thumb at the end of a garden hose to increase the water pressure.
Charp: the green, mutant potato chip found in every bag.
Crummox: the cereal that gets caught between the inner lining and the side of the box.
Dasho: the area between a car's windshield and dashboard where coins and pencils cannot be humanly retrieved.
Ignisecond: the overlapping moment of time when the hand is locking the car door even as the brain is saying: "Nooo, my keys are in there!"
Laminites: those strange people who show up in the photo sections of brand new wallets and picture frames.
Napjerk: the sudden convulsion of the body just as one is about to doze off.
Purpitation: to take something off the grocery shelf, decide you don't want it, and then leave it in another section.
Slurm: the slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when it sits in the dish too long.