snorgle
photo credit: "Girl Hugging Her Old Black Dog " by Steven Depolo (CC-BY-2.0) Image croppedDefinition: (verb) to cuddle by putting your face against the body of a cute animal
Example: Janet isn’t coming tonight. She’s too busy snorgling her new kitten.
Quote:
“We're back with more Bambi and Thumper, with even more shots of their snorgle-fest.”
We all know someone who invents their own slang. My younger sister, a one-time “songstress girl/superstar,” used to amuse folk music audiences by telling them ironically she was going to “cry the big tear” over some misfortune. As far as I know, she made that up—I only found three examples of it on the internet, all created long after she coined it. It’s a useful expression and ought to be used more often!
Of course, others are more famous for their idiosyncratic vocabularies. I wrote, for instance, on the strange sports patter of Dick Vitale in 2004 and the playground language popularized by rapper Snoop Dogg in 2005.
Another word propagator I haven’t written on, but have often thought I should, is Ted Casablanca, the gossip columnist for E! Entertainment. His unusual shorthand, featured in The Awful Truth, includes delish (attractive, from delicious) paps (photographers, from paparazzi) and sitch (situation). More entertaining are his place nicknames, like InWhySee (New York) and Hell-Ay (Los Angeles).
Actually, I think Ted’s language is a bit similar to that of Meg Frost, whose Cute Overload website features the world’s most adorable animal pictures, updated daily. Casablanca says ridiculous things are ree-dick, for example, while Frost calls them redonkulous.
Other terms from Frost’s The Qte (cuteoverload.com): tocks (the buttocks of a cute animal), honk-shu (the sound of a cute animal snoring) and anerable (adorable). Snorgle, by the way, is a portmanteau word, made from snort and snuggle.
Frost’s terminology seems to be making its way out onto the internet. I found over 10,000 instances of her expression the cuteness trifecta on Google, although she’s only had the site for a year and a half. This condition is achieved when an animal picture meets the criteria for at least three of the many Rules of Cuteness.
Complete glossary of terms for The Awful Truth: http://www.eonline.com/gossip/awful/decoder/index.jsp
Complete glossary of terms for Cute Overload: http://www.squidgrid.com/cute/Glossary.htm
A. C. Kemp | April 25, 2007
