Glossary of Accepted Terms
(G.O.A.T.)

Submitted by Babooners
Compiled by Jacque and Barbara in Robbinsdale

About a horse apiece – Close to equal, as in: “with regard to red vs white quinoa, I’d say it was about a horse apiece. Both are good and I couldn’t taste that one was better than the other.” February 12, 2012

Acacia Dentally – a tree of teeth, OR an alternative spelling by a creative Baboon of the adverb “accidentally”, brought about in reference to an ectopic post (see G.O.A.T.)
November 29, 2012 at 1:29 pm

Accidentalics – i.e. “Ooops… unintended italics.  Do we have a word for that?”   December 16, 2013 at 11:12 pm 

Achedemic – Learning something the hard way, as in “she seems to be heading off in more achedemic directions…”          September 3, 2014 at 8:17 am 

Action-y – full of action, as in “If you want to see a movie at the theater, then just see one, since you want to feel action-y afterwards. If you see two, you will be too tired to be action-y.
November 9, 2012 at 9:31 am

All hat and no cattle – description of a person who is all talk and no substance; as in:
t: “maybe we could have tpaw become a north dakotan and wear boots and a gentlemans cowboy hat. chew a little copenhagen and visit the oil frackers. i think hed fit in no time.”
R: “People here would take one look and say ‘All hat and no cattle’
August 14, 2012 at 9:56 am

All y’all – Y’all is impervious to the normal rules of grammar… Y’all is plural, but “all y’all” comes in handy for emphasis in certain scenarios…
June 7, 2012 at 12:27 pm

Alpha Baboon – DC, or Dale Connelly, as in “I am thankful for Trail Baboons and the friends here as well as our Alpha Baboon, DC.” November 23, 2011

Baader Meinhof – defined by the Pioneer Press’ Bulletin Board as “encountering a piece of previously unknown information twice within a 24 hour period.” (It’s surprising how often this comes up.) See Joy of Juxtaposition for clarity through contrast.

Babawesome – Awesome in a Baboonish way.

Baboondipity – An interesting coincidence occurring in Baboonville.

Babooner – One who participates by writing and/or lurking on Dale Connelly’s Trail Baboon Blog, formerly known as Radio Heartland’s Trial Balloon Blog.

Babooninomics – This can be summarized as, “Don’t spend what you don’t have.”

Babooniquette – A fairly gracious set of manners adopted by Babooners that is related to, but different from, traditional “netiquette” (e.g., a tendency to avoid all caps when writing…or in tim’s case, any caps at all; an understanding of how to agree to disagree by simply being nonconflictious; etc.). Babooniquette does not require that you know which spoon to use at the dinner table (or that you use any spoon at all), but it may require that you at least hum along to “You Are My Sunshine” when it is played.

Baviaansverwisseling [from the Dutch words “baviaans” (baboon), and “persoonsverwisseling” (mistaken identity)] – attributing something (i.e. a blog post) to the wrong Babooner. September 20, 2011

Binoculookers – a device that helps you see farther than you usually can. For instance “Then she asked her dad if she could ‘use his binoculookersto view the bear in the night sky’ ”.   February 23, 2015 at 12:10 pm 

Bipartispasm–Against their willful desire, politicians suddenly find themselves experiencing muscle-like brain contractions that influence cooperating and compromising for the common good.

Blevensing – going on and on about something, as the Austin Lounge Lizards (et al.) do in the chorus of the song, Old Blevins: “Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah…” and as follows: “Niblet is sometimes described as “long-suffering”… Imagine having to spend your days listening to [Mr.] T, blevinsing away…” (See Out to Pasture in upper right corner for more on Niblet and Mr. T.)

Blogosphere – The world of bloggery, perhaps including other blogs besides TBB.

Blogular verbosity – related to the frequency of a blogger’s comments, as in this comment from the Alpha Baboon, “Now that I’ve revealed the recent ranking, let me emphasize that there is no prize here for blogular verbosity .” (Dale) Also considered farther down on the page:
verbose blogularity
vorbose irblogularity
verbosious blogularium
verbo-a-blog d’baboon
April 25, 2012 at 12:40 pm


Brace (of pets) – Two animals. “We have three cats… A brace… refers to a pair of objects, so I have one and half brace of cats.” Larger numbers may be spoken of as the number of “head”, as in “I asked an old Indian in cowboy land one time how many cats he had. He squinted a bit and said, ‘Oh, maybe 30 head!’ ”

Brain Fade – The moment characterized by the question “Why did I come in here?”

Cannardly – a more elegant way to express mixed ethnic heritage, as in: “He said he was Cannardly – so many different ethnicities that you can hardly tell…”

Cannardly ² – an alternate definition referring to diamonds or other gemstones that are so small you cannardly see them, i.e. “The center stone is so large that the ½ caret side stones look like cannardlies.”
September 13, 2012 at 1:10 pm

Cheapatude – Extreme thrift, as in “We have resorted, in our retired cheapatude, to making our own cards with Steve’s photos and just writing inside.”

Cheek turnee – the recipient of the compassionate act of turning the other cheek, as in: “many of us can recall being the cheek turner but very few cheek turnees.” January 9, 2012

chipmonks – a variation on the name of a familiar mammal, living at tim’s place, “that calls to mind the image of a bucktoothed friar.” May 22, 2012 at 8:08 am

Chocolate covered raisins – bioflavinoids wrapped in decadence. March 12, 2012 at 8:41 am 

Cleaver – Especially creative in a Baboonish way (not to be confused with the ordinary “clever”).

Cliffy – The TB way of saying someone has overdone it on the explanation of the facts. Other examples welcome.

Compassion fatigue – acquired PTSD for therapists from being around too many other people’s traumas
November 9, 2012 at 5:54 pm

Conflictious – 1. A cross between “litigious” and “conflictual”, possibly making you a candidate for a session with BMB (See acronyms). 2. A delicious conflict.

Credit Card Camping – Camping by staying in motels or B & B’s along the route, as in “I’m no camper! We did credit card camping.”

Crimea River – a river in Crimea, OR a sad song. “If you’re aim is to turn this geopolitical episode into a musical, don’t forget to include Crimea River as one of the numbers.”  (unfortunately, I lost track of the date for this one.) .March 24, 2014 at 7:40 pm 

Delurk — To fully participate by writing on the blog after a period of lurkitude, as in “Nice of you to delurk, Connie.”

Disphasia – the condition of being out of synch with others of your generation  (did I get this right, Clyde?), as in “The gap has created some interesting disphasia in our life.”   June 23, 2015

Distraughtitude – The condition of being distraught, as in:  “I’m sure that the distraughtitude of the usual suspects will probably be more pronounced.”   June 3, 2015 at 8:09 am

Ectopic – out of place, as in: “Ectopic comments are always welcome!” which followed: “Ugh, I … meant that reply to go under Beth-Ann’s comment.”

E-mail Pack Rattery – Hoarding of emails, as in: “I tend toward e-mail pack rattery … I have countless personal notes from friends that I can’t throw away.”

Emotional hangover – a state of mind “that only mashed potatoes can address,” sometimes following a day in which a community has lost one of its favorite members, i.e. Tom Keith. November 2, 2011

Erstwife – former wife, and the entry with the most votes during a TBB discussion on March 4, 2012.

Ethical polyhedron – the case that there are many points of view to consider, as in:
“one sees so many sides to an issue that it can be difficult to come down resolutely in one camp or another…there is ALWAYS another side–an ethical polyhedron, so to speak”
June 28, 2012 at 7:54 am 

Etiquette – …”a lubricant that allows people of all sorts to interact without friction.” October 3, 2011

Experience Loyal – An alternative to being  brand loyal:   “I am experience-loyal  Give me a good experience, and I’m bound to come back.”   November 25, 2013 at 11:58 am 

fauxtimming  November 25, 2013 at 3:34 pm – “a disorder having to do with the inability to remember to capitalize and or punctuate. on occasion there may be a hand held device that intercedes and give the impression of english etiquette but it is an illusion. it is called fauxtimming. [timism] * and fauxtimming are not taught but can be easily implemented with any standard keyboard and a computer that has a disarm feature on its spell checker.”       October 6, 2014 at 11:16 am

Fei da, Ish da – The Norwegian equivalent of Oy Vey, as in “I remember my grandfather talking about the progression from uff da to fei da to ish da based on milking cows – ish da being what [barb] experienced … * (though it hovers near a fei da, definitely an ish da if you got splashed).”
* “ …[when Sugar, the visiting goat,] was standing nicely. then i got complacent and BANG! goathoof in bucket. 2 quarts of milk ruined and bucket contaminated.”

Feisties – Baboon mothers who are extraordinarily resilient, strong, or tenacious. “Great mothers, Tim, Caroline and Sue; a trio of Feisties.” February 16, 2012

Flaming extrovert – an extremely gregarious Baboon, as in “Being a flaming extrovert, however, pretty much guarantees a good time and with 21 nightclubs on this monster ship…” January 26, 2012

Forgetful-compulsive – a new personality disorder, coined by the Alpha Baboon, in which the patient has both memory and control issues, exemplified by the following: “I forgot that last week I had scheduled Steve’s post to publish today, and then yesterday I compulsively wrote a new one of my own.” February 28, 2012

Fusspot – a very fussy person, as in: “Fusspot is a term created by my husband, who is much more of a fusspot than I am.” See also Troublespot, and Lucy in Peanuts for the variation, fussbudget.

Gemutliche – Warm friendliness; amicability – snug, cozy, comfortable… Descriptions of a special cat. November 11, 2011

Glossarization – what happens to a post or reply when it is being prepared the Glossary of Accepted Terms, as in: “Thank you for the glossarization … One of the things I loooove about this group is the mutual joy in wordplay.”
March 3, 2012 at 9:33 am<

Gludge – a combination of snow and slush or sludge that accumulates only in late April, when the last thing one wants to do is remove it when we should be seeing buds pop out on our trees and shrubbery. Ex: “16 inches of gludge at the bottom of my driveway from the plows this morning.”
April 19, 2013 at 10:05 am

Goatswaggled – Physically outwitted by a goat. See also Fei da and Ish da.

Golden Banana – an award given here on the Trail to a Babooner for particularly distignuished writing or idea. It was started by the Baboon named Jacque, an award “given … by whim and whimsy for achievements above and beyond the Baboon Call of Duty. If I feel like it.”
June 10, 2012 at 10:49 am

Googleholic – a Baboon addicted to doing very frequent searches on Google.com, as in: “It isn’t 10:30 AM yet, and I have done at least 15. Makes me a Googleholic, maybe.”
March 3, 2012 at 10:25 am

Holy Goat! – an exclamation used to express bewilderment, surprise, or astonishment, but in a more goatly manner than, for instance, “Holy Cow” or “Holy Batman.”
December 10, 2012 at 9:01 am 

Hooby – either a cross between a hobby and a hubby, or a hobby that’s a hoot… as in “become involved in a hooby or something that is real…”

Huh? – “I am completely at sea. Please repeat or clarify the last several posts.”

Hygge, hyggelig – A Danish word that doesn’t have an English counterpart:  “Hygge” is part state of mind, part physical coziness that includes comfort and warmth, and good smells. As we get close to Christmas, a batch of gløg, a few Christmas cookies, soothing music and, again, a lot of lit candles help make things  hyggelig  …”       December 21, 2013 at 8:03 am

Idiotocracy – The type of politics practiced by MB (See Acronyms).

Idiotology — Aberrant political thought, as in, “I am afraid that much of current political discourse has sunken to the point where a lot of it can be described as “idiotology.”

Incumbent bike – a bike that’s going to stick around for another 2, 4, or 6 years.

Inert – a particularly inactive level of activity in a person, i.e., “I took Latin in high school…I rather enjoyed it even though the teacher was somewhat inert.” September 20, 2011

Ingrown narcissism – self-regard that has become problematically internalized, as in …“if we stop for ice cream we may not have enough money to pay for Timmy’s operation to fix his ingrown narcissism”.

Interwinkled – associated or connected, as in “Dale [DC] said a while back, humor is what we humans do to get a grip, and we get the grippe to naturally cleanse our innards. It’s all relative. And interwinkled.”

Irrititrating — annoyance one feels at the imposition of a new and obfuscating term when clear, more general, language is already available.

Jamicized: to be clothed in your jammies, as in: “There is an ice cream truck that frequents our neighborhood. We do not patronize that [ice cream] truck (partly because sometimes he comes around after we have called it a night and are jamicized, thank you very much).”

Jimming – a dinosaur baboon word having to do with the practice of double posting (now defunct, as the new blog disallows it).

Joke-A-Sphere — Where all the good jokes that you can’t remember have gone.

Joy of Juxtaposition – a confluence of references to something that was already in your knowledge base; see Baader Meinhof for clarity through contrast.

Junk Thought – Thought at the most outrageous point, at the greatest amounts of decibels. (See MB in acronyms.)

Latent utility – usefulness in the future, and a reason to keep an item, as in “There are the remaining painting and carving supplies, which I may one day use, and I consider latent utility useful.”

Leucistic – an animal with a reduced pigmentation caused by a recessive gene…“Unlike albinism, it is caused by a reduction in all types of skin pigment (Wikipedia)”, as in: “There is a small population of leucistic squirrels in Waterville. They’re not albinos because their eyes are black. “
April 18, 2012 at 10:55 am 

Lexiconolic – a Babooner addicted to doing very frequent use of a dictionary, as in: “10 times a day online; I’m a lexiconolic.”
March 3, 2012 at 6:58 am</em>

Line camarerie – what happens when like minded people stand in line together for an extended time. “I love line camraderie when it breaks out.” November 12, 2011

Lurkitude — Reading the blog from one step back, but not writing and participating; giggling, chortling, guffawing, and belly laughs optional.

Mingy, minginginess – “Being skimpy, paring everything just inside of “enough”. Rhymes with stingy, and means about the same but not quite, as there is also an implication of deception-pretended generosity. (This is actually in the dictionary, folks.)”  October 22, 2014 at 11:36 am 

Mondegreen – mis-heard lyrics to a song, as in: “They had slain the Earl of Moray/And Lady Mondegreen” instead of …”And Laid Him on the Green.” Sept. 16, 2011

Mushroomisticism – slow cooking a mushroomy dish for hours at low heat.  “im tackling suaces as my next challenge, that and mushroomisticism.” February 5, 2015 at 7:49 am

Multi-nontasking – looking around and seeing all the things one hasn’t managed to get done. August 1, 2013 at 7:15 pm       i.e. “I can sit with a cat on my lap while listening to a ball game.”  August 2, 2013 at 12:03 am

Non-Fiction Situation – An event in which it is not prudent to alter facts, i.e. a trip to the tax accountant, where you say, “I swear this information is true.”

O-T – Off Topic.

Oxford comma – the final comma preceding “and” in a list, lovingly used by a number of Baboons. January 26, 2012

Pancake of glory – one way of leaving the planet (esp. involving a falling piece of an Upper Air Research Satellite), as in: “Let it land here. I am ready to go out in a pancake of glory.” September 22, 2011 <

Pawlenty (verb transitive) – to hide something from the public, and then do what you want, as in: “the masses don’t realize until after they’ve already been pawlentyed.

Pizzle Rot – An exclamation of a Babooner’s frustration, as in “Oh, pizzle rot, my italics didn’t shut off.”

Poemizing – creating poetry, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, on the Baboon Trail; as in: “Nice poemizing, DC and Tim.” February 2, 2012

Procrasti-tasks – “things you don’t want to do, but you do them to avoid something you want to do less. For example, if you have laundry to fold which has been sitting for days but you also have a grant request to write, suddenly the laundry is folded.”   January 12, 2015 at 10:37 am

Prumpers, or Pah-Rumpers — Singers of “The Little Drummer Boy.”

Punctuational – on time for the blog, and keeping track of it throughout the day, as in: “Didn’t we tell you how important it is to be punctuational?”

Rannygazoo – 1. The run-around, or nonsense, as in, “I had to pass as Canadian so I could avoid all ‘rannygazoo’ with my visa status.” 2. A prank or joke; semi-archaic, from the 1940’s and PG Wodehouse novels.

Rock Bend Folk Festival – a FREE music festival in St. Peter the weekend after Labor Day, to which the Baboon Krista in Waterville devotes a good portion of her August (and maybe July). February 21, 2012

Rojak (roh-jark) – a Malaysian colloquialism meaning a mix or a salad, also used to describe language, e.g. using several languages/dialects in a single sentence. See also Cannardly.

Rush Baboonbaugh – a spokesperson that would defend the rights of Baboons, probably in an outspoken manner. February 13, 2012

Schaumkessel – a German word for boiling or foaming kettle, or a relative who acts like one; as in this interchange: “My maternal grandmother was a Schaumkessel…” “Do you know what Schaumkessel means? It has such a cool sound.” “I think it means boiling or foaming kettle… and she kinda was….”

Scroogitude – Behaving like Ebenezer before he experienced the Three Spirits.

Self-Hiding – The ability to hide something from yourself, as in “I’m getting to the point where I can hide my own Easter Eggs.” See also Brain fade.

Semi-Colonoscopy — The study of the correct placement of semi-colons.

Snarky snort – a snort with a devilish little “heh-heh” to it. January 7, 2012

Snort – short for “That made me laugh so hard I’m snorting coffee (or some other beverage)”. Also a baboonish substitute for LOL or ROTFLOLAWM (see New Acronyms). Snort could be an acceptable short form of the TBB’s mission statement.

Spedition – a shopping expedition that include ice cream, as follows:
”When my son was younger and had to accompany me on errands I started to call them expeditions thinking it would make it easier to jolly him into going. The name was shortened to speditions. At one point I upped the ante and offered ice cream to make the journey sweeter. Then with an elephantine memory my son proclaimed the definition of a spedition included ice cream every time. ”

Spiritual tithe – a fine paid to a good cause, as in: I even ENJOY paying my library fines because I feel as if it is my spiritual tithe to an (almost) holy space.

Storage brains – the (often older) family members who recollect the family’s historical information, “Unfortunately all storage brains… have died so we have not much more than she could find in public records.”

Suspension of Belief and/or Suspension of Disbelief – A fudging of facts used in many situations, particularly by theater people; or re: TV, movies, etc.

Thurgery – Any surgery taking place on a Thursday.

timism – An ambiguity in which you are not sure whether there was a typo, or an intentional misspelling, as in “My favorite timism of the week is ‘Talk snout dysfunctional’…” (See Dec. 23, 2010 TBB for rich, complete discussion.)

To-do-plegia – Wikipedia uses “plegia” to describe paralysis in which all voluntary movement is lost.” To-do-plegia involves a to-do list, as in “I need lots of good energy sent my way this week. … [to accomplish] the to-do list…” March 19, 2012 at 10:56 am ,    September 8, 2014 at 10:31 am 

Turbo-mouse – A rodent capable of monumental achievement, say, climbing with a malted milk ball to a place 12’ off the ground.   “My apologies to the turbo-mouse if I am not giving credit where it is due.” November 25, 2014 at 6:23 am 

Tortured Acronym Rule – putting up to three extraneous letters in an acronym to come up with a better word, i.e., “SWIFT is short for Statewide Integrated Financial Tools… although “Statewide” may be one word, it’s almost two words, and we like the acronym SWIFT better than SIFT, so we’re going to invoke the Tortured Acronym Rule.” December 13, 2011

trailing preposition, trailing apology : What’s a trailing preposition? “thats a preposition you do while you are here on the trail i presuppose but heck thats ok you can do anything here on the trail. you dont need to leave no dang trailing apologies.” February 2, 2012

Troublespot – those relatives and acquaintances who have been difficult or naughty. “It would be really unfortunate to be a fusspot and a troublespot all in the same day.” (See also Fusspot)

Truffle shuffle kerfuffle – Exemplified in the following Baboon conversation:
“I’m thinking that the next Blevins meeting could be a truffle exchange. Everybody bring a couple chocolate truffles and then we’d shuffle ‘em and eat ‘em…” (Steve)
“Then, if we got into a disagreement of how the truffles were to be allocated, we could have a truffle shuffle kerfuffle. (ba-dum-BUM)”
March 29, 2012 at 10:14 am

Typhonic winds of their own psychosis – in the realm of worrying: “Usually, there comes a point of ridiculousness where the person comes to realize how nutty they’re being. And, if not, at the very least, it’s entertaining watching them twist in the typhonic winds of their own psychosis.” September 22, 2011

Unfronding – In response to Dale’s hand-weeding description: I need to confront the weeds personally, face to frond”, there was this comment: “These days we call what you do unfronding the weeds.” August 5, 2013 at 7:06 am        DC: “Hah! Just think, I could have wasted all those hours on Facebook instead!”

Uff da – Norwegian for “Oy”. See also Fei da and Ish da.

Weasel words – Product description lingo that disguises some aspect of the contents of a food, as in “If a product is described as chocolatey, that’s an almost certain indicator that there’s no actual chocolate in it.”   February 28, 2014 at 11:29 am

Worm wigs – a very creative typo that created this mental image:  “I wonder if I wore a worm wig if that could solve my winter composting problems – I could have compost-eating worms right on top of my head.”   March 27, 2014 at 1:12 pm

Vishnuverheer – A neo-religion practiced by vacationers and post card senders.

Wasband – A person whowas one’s husband. Frequently used with glee at the past tense involved. (Not to be confused with Washboard.) February 8, 2012

“Whobody” Mail – that mail from people you know and like, as contrasted with “anybody” mail, the junk and bulk mail which gets largely ignored.

Whumping – Sound of a Baboon in the process of losing a conflict over finite resources.

Wikiwalk – a “pernicious online phenomenon”; specifically, an unintended, possibly long and convoluted journey through the internet, as in: “today you are a lost soul on an endless internet search on into the time tunnell where minute turn into hours and the days go by without any indication that you were ever there. a little you tube video, a piece of information from the wikipedia archive on the topic.. off into the vast amounts of miniscule detail folks have assembled on whatever the topic.”

Willywacky – as in: “Then you can position your reply, hit paste and Post Comment. If something goes willywacky you still have your comment intact.”

Yikes meter – a measure of… take your pick:  outrageousness, offensiveness, or unbelievability that causes a Baboon to say “Well, that’s way up there on the yikes meter.”   March 22, 2015 at 9:58 pm

ACRONYMS

BMB – Billy Marty Barry
BuRP – Baboon Relocation Project (See Tortured Acronym Rule)
BSOR – Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty
CAT – I admit to having Compulsive Acronym Tendencies     February 21, 2015
CRAPO – Calendar Reactive Anniversary Pile On   November 22, 2013
DC – Dale Connelly
GLOTTMBD – Great Lists of Things That Must Be Done
IYCSSNTDSAAA – If You Can’t Say Something Nice Then Don’t Say Anything At All
LIFO – In inventory management, Last In First Out, as opposed to
FIFO (guess what that means)
MB – Michele Bachmann
OFTLOW – oh for the love of wool
OPT – On Previous Topic
Pr³ – pressing priority predicament RH – Radio Heartland
ROTFLOLAWM – rolling on the floor laughing out loud and wetting myself
s&h – son and heir, esp. madislandgirl’s son and heirTB – Trail Baboon
S.L.A.P.D.A.S.H. – Slobs Leaving A Permanent Document About Sloppy History: a club for concerned people who don’t want to erase our story with reckless overuse of soap.
STW – Schuyler Tyler Wyler, Trail Baboon’s Rhyming Poet Laureate
SWMBA – She Who Must Be Adored
TBB – Trail Baboon Blog
TLGMS – The Late Great Morning Show
TRoUBLE – Team Responding on Unusually Big Lighting
TTFN – ta-ta for now (from Winnie-the-Pooh)
TWHQ – World Headquarters of the Trail Baboon Blog
WOT – way off topic