@ sixes & sevens

There but for the grace of God ...

Schadenfriede

n. The feeling of relief at the misfortune of other museums. See "A Collection of Tribal Art Is Embroiled in a Modern Family Feud".

block that neologism ... but not this one.

comfortability

We heard this from one of the Mets sportscasters the other day. Kiki had her head turned, but when I squeaked "Comfortability?" she said, "Oh, I'm glad you noticed that." This is a classic case of adding on to a word when there's a perfectly useful and shorter word in use -- in this case, comfort.

Mind you, I'm not against word elaboration when there's a semantic need for it. Kiki brought this to mind when she quoted someone in an article in the Times, who referred to an heirloom's divineness. Clearly this 'divine' object had not so much divinity as divineness.

But what then of this word that Kiki came up with: definity? What could be more cumbersome that definiteness -- no better than comfortability, really. And the pre-existing noun definition has by now taken on so many other meanings that a new word is certainly called for.

yet more further words

ventriloquence

1. the practice of projecting one's voice with fluency and aptness so that it seems to come from another source.
2. (fig.) the art of making other people say what you want them to say.

This is (as far as I can tell) a neologism.

personalty

This is a real world, or at least a word used in the legal profession. American Heritage Dictionary online defines it as "Personal property; chattels." This came up while talking with the estate lawyer yesterday afternoon. Of course, there in the forms I was signing was the very word "chattels" used in the definition above. In a sense, it's personality with the 'I' taken out. (yuk, yuk)

It put me in mind of other -ty words. The first one that sprang to my mind was admiralty, and it seems that the root word needs to end in al for it to work. [My literate and lawyerly neighbor reminded me of both realty, the apposite of personalty, and fealty.]  Is there a use for "the liberalty"?

a silk purse out of a sow's ear

in·'sou·ci·ance + 'in·so·lent = in·'sou·so·lent

This new portmanteau word popped into my head as I watched a casually obnoxious teenager on the bus thumbing his cellphone and blocking the aisle.