I love word mash ups. One of the best in recent memory is the explanabrag. I don’t know if the word was coined on the TV show Community, but that is where I heard it first. Along with complisult. I love the way blended words can so precisely skewer a behavior or state of being. Sometimes.

Not all mashups are as memorable or worthy as explanabrag. Some have become so common its easy to forget they were created (motel, chortle, bodacious, cyborg, fauxhawk, carjack) others you can only wish they will disappear from usage. I vote for brony & twerk but that’s just me.

I was in a meeting the other day and as it was wrapping one of the women said she had a request to make. She went on to a lengthy explanation of the very important and highly dangerous work that her very accomplished and smart son-in-law is doing internationally. And then she asked that we all keep him in our prayers.

Having just finished teaching a workshop on networking and self-promotion, I filed away this technique for future reference.

I have no real beef with this woman being proud and wanting to brag about her son-in-law, but the fact that she did it under the pretext of asking for “prayers and thoughts” made me want a new word to describe it. Explana-prayer? Requetsa-brag? Braga-quest? Suggestions welcome.

I find this woman endlessly entertaining in a tiring sort of way. She is elderly, southern and in the habit of saying things like “Bless her heart, she just doesn’t have a clue about what she’s doing.” I think that fits tidily into the category of a “blessisult” but something else may have already been coined that I haven’t heard yet.

My favorite song about words.