Saturday, August 20, 2022

Bonnovian Etymology

At Castle Bedlam, we have a phrase, "Bonnovian Etymology." It refers to phrases and portmanteaus that arise from necessity or whimsy or sideways brain farts at just the right time; the wordplay equivalent of the Butterfly Effect. One example is "During a conversation, this Scandinavian guy couldn't remember the English word for "cowboys," and finally referred to them as "Horse Pirates." Cue laughter.

Another example is "The little girl was enchanted with the new skirt because it had POCKETS, but because she was little, she referred to them as her "snack holes," and that is what I shall call them forevermore."

Now, Farrah Bonnot didn't actually come UP with these examples, but for some reason, I tend to see them on her Facebook page, hence the term "Bonnovian Etymology," which, I suppose, is an example of itself, albeit nowhere near as funny and cute as the examples she habitually LISTS, right?

Now, at this point, I abruptly break from the story to discuss cat litter boxes. We have four cats, which is of course too many, and requires some effort to stay ahead of litterbox cleaning. We also found out that to walk barefoot across bare floors scattered with cat litter is unpleasant at best, and enraging in the moments before coffee is poured. So we invested in some of those cat litter mats, black rubber with a hexagonal grid pressed into it. The idea is that you put the mat UNDER the litter box, and when the cat does his business, he climbs out... and the litter that clings to his pads is scraped off and falls into the hexagonal grid before he tracks it all over the house, right?

It works. Sort of. Mostly. Acceptably. But Doom Cat, for some reason, probably because he's an idiot, will often climb into the litterbox... and position himself... and pee directly over the rim of the box, onto the floor. No one knows why he does this, aside from being as dumb as a box of ball peen hammers, for all that he's a lovely black house panther, loving and snugglesome. But he sometimes pees on the floor.

The hexgrid catmat helped with this. Kind of. But it also meant that the hexgrid catmat had to be taken out and hosed down occasionally, lest it begin to smell urinesome, if you acquire my driftness.

Now, back to the original story:

We needed to go to the store today, for dry cat food and other things, and Berni thought that perhaps today would be the day to pick up some new hexgrid catmats, because the current ones are redolent in ways that put one off one's crumpets, if you catch my tide, and I think you do.

And she turned to me, and attempted to verbalize this idea: "While we are there, let us acquire more hexgrid catmats, that we may discard the old smelly ones."

And for some reason, her brain refused to assemble the words properly. Why? I dunno. Same reason Scandinavian Guy couldn't remember the word "Cowboy," or the little girl couldn't remember the word for "pockets."

And this is why the phrase is "Bonnovian Etymology," because Farrah's examples are funny and charming, whereas the Bedlamese apparently loses something in the translation.

Casa Bonnot gets words like "Horse Pirates" and "Snack Holes."

Castle Bedlam gets, "Hey, honey, while we're at Target, we need to pick up some more... (pause)... piss waffles."

EDIT: I am since reminded that actual Bonnovian Etymology includes terms like "Poop rocks" (cat litter,) "Roll of inches," (measuring tape,) "Horse tornadoes," (carousels), and my personal favorite, "Taco flaps," (tortillas.)