Monday, September 12, 2005
ucky-ovo
I was just commenting on Dr. Write's site and the letters for confirming my post were uckyovo. I think this should be a word, so I propose you all start using it (I added the hyphen, as it seemed necessary). I was talking with my Lang. in Society students about neologists, and how they could (and probably do) generate new words. I can imagine lots of possible meanings and contexts for my new word. It would make a great exclamation of dismay upon cleaning out one's fridge--"Ugh, ucky-ovo." If I change up a few letters and make it "ucky-evoo," I can actually hear Rachael Ray, that perky foodtv gal, using the word when her precious EVOO (which she always reminds the viewer is her acronym for Extra Virgin Olive Oil--does she not understand the purpose of an acronym?) goes rancid.
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5 comments:
Also, if you go all Latin-roots, you've got ovo, which is egg or close to it, so you have, even in the nonsense scrambly word, misogyny. On bitter days, I've been saying of late that misogyny is hard-wired into human culture. But in the alphabet? Oh. My. God.
Yeah, I was thinking eggs, but the chicken variety, not so much the link to women in general. But you've got a good point.
Actually, Ucky-Ovo was a secret world invented by HP Lovecraft in his seminal 1929 short story "The Cthulhu Variations" (first appearing in Weird Tales magazine). I think it means "world beneath the world" in the Dialect of the Old Ones. Funny that it should be your password!
Yeah, I borrowed a Rachael Ray cookbook from the library once, and she was "EVOO"ing all over it. "Once around the pan!" the book practically chirped at me. It did get annoying.
If you went back to the Latin and played with it, "ovo" would be the made up masculine version of "ovum," so an "ucky-ovo" could be a man who is a "bad egg."
- Marcia (a friend of Middlebrow and Dr. Write)
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