The New Year is the time to make wishes for what is to come – mine being that we all start to use the word “bansturbator” more. The reasons why being twofold, firstly that it’s simply a great word, one the language needs. Secondly, it might bring some tiny measure of immortality if it were to become widely used. No, I didn’t invent it but there’s a reasonable chance that I was the first to use it in print. And when they come to compile the dictionaries of words people actually do use that first use in print is pointed to.
I have – long ago – been in contact with OED about this word and was told that it would take a decade at least before they’d even consider it – it’s now 11 years and counting since that first use in print. It’s also being used by others. James Delingpole for example:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Delingpole: 2018 Was the Year Nanny State Bansturbators Went Bananas Whatever you like to eat, whatever you drink, whatever you enjoy doing in your spare time, the Bansturbators wanted to slap health warnings on it, make it more expensive or, ideally, regulate it out of existence. [/perfectpullquote]The provenance, meaning, and that first as far as I know print usage:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Language changes, new words are invented all the time. Whether a freshly minted coinage makes it into the lexicon depends upon both luck and whether we actually need it: does it describe something for which we previously did not have a word? If it does then there is a good chance that it will make its appearance in dictionaries, the thesauruses and even columns in serious newspapers. One candidate is the verb “to bansturbate” (origin, Harry Haddock, who blogs at nationofshopkeepers.wordpress.com). The word – a fusion of “ban” and the term for self-abuse – refers to both the public abuse of the rights of the citizenry as things that some people simply disapprove of are made illegal, and the near-sexual frisson of pleasure gained by those who pass such laws. [/perfectpullquote]Think of all those bureaucrats, grinning wildly and sweating slightly as they compile those regulations at their desks. To ban something people like doing eases their day as much as a Stormy Daniels video does for the teenage boy. And the future ain’t gonna get any better:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The future is not, as Orwell forecast, a boot stamping on a human face, for ever. It is our masters and rulers, grinning wildly in their mad bansturbation.[/perfectpullquote]We should – OK, perhaps you’d like to aid in – make bansturbator the word of the year for 2019 by us all simply using it a lot. It’s a useful word, one the language needs, and it’s probably my only chance of getting into any record books about anything.
Don’t you ever take a break Tim? Please don’t because I enjoy your copy. Happy New Year!