A 434-word story, including 19 outstanding words…

~Friday~  Shortly after I read the article, 19 outstanding words you should work into a conversation, which was in the November 30 edition of The Week, I decided that I was going to make up a story that uses all 19 of those words.

Well, here it is. The first version has the words, alone, it. The second version has the meaning of the words inserted, in red, before them.


It's that time of year when it's hard to avoid the average 7-10 pound kummerspeck, brought to you courtesy of the season of the oldfangled calorie cornucopia, as well as by spending time with ancestry with whom the mood can go from badinage to bonkers in 60 seconds or less—not to mention the urge to "calm your nerves" with a shot or two, whether you're a paper-belly or a pretzel-bender.

Ah, holiday vacations! You've completed an exhausting number of work tasks—to a point just short of karoshi—to leave the office behind, and although you're as free as a child on Punk Day, it'll be at least until zeg before the dysania dissipates and you can even think about the word "work" without a wrinkle forming in the midst of your glabella.

How to completely relax those first couple of days is as foreign to you as choosing the best overnight boxcar is to a gay-cat, and you make a lawn mullet of your mind—pushing the messiness of work to the rear and the beauty of the long, leisurely days ahead to the forefront.

On the day after the day after tomorrow, you're finally relaxed enough for a turn on the back porch hammock, to take in the early-morning petrichor. Peering into the distance, your interest is piqued by a lass scything cornstalks as she slowly backs toward you, igniting a feeling of koi no yokan deep inside you, until she's close enough to see her for the bakku-shan that she is, and then it's moments before the Wheaton of emotions you just went through subside.

Emotionally spent, you turn to your smartphone, and console yourself in a Words with Friends game currently in progress. Your tray is dismal—S-T-H-W-S-R-C-S—but you marvel at your luck of having the only word you know that has no vowels, and you slowly slide crwth onto the board.

Drawing your five replacement tiles, although the odds of it happening are infinitesimally slim, you cringe at the thought of getting five more consonants. With each new letter, TKST, your heart skips another beat, not with despair now, but with the lottery-like dream that the final tile will be blank, and it is, to make:

T S K T S Blank-K S


It's that time of year when it's hard to avoid the average 7-10 pound excess weight gained from emotional overeating (kummerspeck), brought to you courtesy of the season of the old fashioned (oldfangled) calorie cornucopia, as well as by spending time with ancestry with whom the mood can go from a playing, joking banter (badinage) to bonkers in 60 seconds or less—not to mention the urge to "calm your nerves" with a shot or two, whether you're a person unable to drink liquor straight, or one who grimaces after drinking (paper-belly) or a heavy drinker; one who frequents bars (pretzel-bender).

Ah, holiday vacations! You've completed an exhausting number of work tasks—to a point just short of death from being overworked (karoshi)—to leave the office behind, and although you're as free as a child on a day when children are admitted to a carnival or circus free (Punk Day), it'll be at least until the day after tomorrow (zeg) before the having difficulty getting out of bed in the morning (dysania) dissipates and you can even think about the word "work" without a wrinkle forming in the midst of your space between the eyebrows (glabella).

How to completely relax those first couple of days is as foreign to you as choosing the best overnight boxcar is to a hobo not wise to the ways of hobo life (gay-cat), and you make a neatly manicured front yard and an unmowed mess in the back (lawn mullet) of your mind—pushing the messiness of work to the rear and the beauty of the long, leisurely days ahead to the forefront.

On the day after the day after tomorrow, you're finally relaxed enough for a turn on the back porch hammock, to take in the early-morning clean, pleasant smell that accompanies rain falling on dry ground (petrichor). Peering into the distance, your interest is piqued by a lass of the quantity of beauty required to launch just one ship (milliHelen) scything cornstalks as she slowly backs toward you, igniting a feeling of the sense upon first meeting a person that the two of you will fall in love (koi no yokan) deep inside you, until she's close enough to see her for the woman who appears pretty from behind but not from the front (bakku-shan) that she is, and then it's moments before the half a million (Wheaton) emotions you just went through subside.

Emotionally spent, you turn to your smartphone, and console yourself in a Words with Friends game currently in progress. Your tray is dismal—STHWSRCS—but you marvel at your luck of having the only word you know that has no vowels, and you slowly slide the word for an ancient Celtic musical instrument (crwth) onto the board.

Drawing your five replacement tiles, although the odds of it happening are infinitesimally slim, you cringe at the thought of getting five more consonants. With each new letter, TKST, your heart skips another beat, not with despair now, but with the lottery-like dream that the final tile will be blank, and it is, to make the word whose meaning is questionable, but which is allowed in Words with Friends:

T S K T S Blank-K S

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