The POTW: Verse Til It Hurts

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POTW #842
(Week of 9 June, 2013)
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This was all triggered by something I read in an article recently, to the effect that makers of fake plants would prefer we call them "permanent botanicals." Predictably, I became irate about the larger trend of constantly branding and re-branding everything in our lives. (Incidentally, some of those fake plants are pretty convincing these days!)

Word that I invented and like, but that was ultimately evicted from the poem: "dysgestible," referring to the kind of thing you can eat but probably shouldn't.

Phraseonomics

Artificial plants are now called "permanent botanicals"
Broken toasters, nothing, those are "solid-state mechanicals"
Junk food is outmoded, now it's "adipose comestibles"
Torch-and-pitchfork angry mobs, "impassioned harvest festivals"

"Nicotine residuals" and "canine rear emissions"
Are "proactively dephysicalized" by "tidiness technicians"
Intrusive advertising will henceforth be known as "messaging"
Privation, tax, and thievery will all be forms of "lessaging"

"Profound dogmatic durable pre-qualified position"
Replaces "hate" and "bigotry," and possibly "tradition"
Adherents may engage in "autorighteous selfless acts"
"Quasivalidated" by "subjective objective facts"

And crimes will now be known as "extra-legal creativity"
Offenders "individuals with upward culpability"
Whether it's "covertified financial disenhancement"
Or "variegated serial mortality advancement"

"Small" and "short" are not how I prefer myself be labeled
"Compact space prepared," or maybe "inverse height enabled"
Phraseonomics works towards "administered understanding"
It's not a deceptive whitewash job, it's "positive language branding"

Copyright © 2013 by Dave Grossman

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