The Nu Collitch Dickshunary is a humorous collection of words that appeared on essays written over a 20-year period by college students in the author’s class on Contemporary Social Problems. The purpose of the essays, which were meant to be an exercise in critical thinking, was to give the students an opportunity to comment on particular problems as they were discussed in the reading assignments, lectures or in film/video presentations.
The essays not only illustrate the ingenuity and creativity of today’s young people in finding the right words to fit a particular situation, but they also reveal a high degree of originality in their spelling practices. In order to preserve some of these “gems” for posterity the author noted them on 3x5 cards, and over the years compiled a fairly extensive collection (or collation as one of his students might write); and in this small volume he has brought them together for your edification and possible amusement.
The author was born and raised in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He has degrees from Harvard, The University of Connecticut, and Brown University, and has spent the better part of his adult life teaching at the college level – first at The University of Connecticut (1961-71) and most recently at Bowling Green State University (1971-97). During his professional career he authored or co-authored four textbooks and over 200 journal articles, reviews and various research reports. He is now an Emeritus Professor at Bowling Green State University and he and his wife live a semi-nomadic existence, summering on Plum Island in Newburyport and wintering at Key Colony Beach in the Florida Keys, while spending the intervening months in Bowling Green, Ohio,
analization: an attempt to explain the nature of some phenomenon; an overall explanation of
My initial reaction on reading the following comment was that the student was hitting me with some kind of vulgar insult; but on second thought I think he was complimenting me (or maybe he is smarter than I give him credit for?).
Your lecture presented a very good analization of the problem
of poverty in the United States
betterize: to improve, enrich
Students often made-up words to express their thoughts. On the other hand, what better way to improve the quality of life for people in the poor countries than by implementing programs that have this as a primary goal? To wit:
A primary goal of all national development programs is to betterize the life of the people.
constipation: a group of stars in a fixed pattern
Many of the misuses or misspellings I encountered caused a little chuckle when I first read them, but on some occasions –- as in reading the following comment -- my reaction was a spontaneous outburst of hearty laughter. The occasion was a video that dealt with the problem of technology changing so fast today that it could be a cause of psychological distress. Although one of the technologies discussed had to do with space travel, I really do not know what was in the head of the student who wrote the following comment:
The Big Dipper is the most famous constipation in our galaxy.
disfunction: verb meaning to cause something to work wrong
This is a clear illustration of the fairly common practice of treating a perfectly good noun as a perfectly bad verb:
Alcohol disfunctions the brain.
hymens: religious songs
Oops! Nothing is ever what it appears to be these days.
I'm not sure I believe in God but I still like the hymens we
sing in church every Sunday.
learning: fact; piece of information; new knowledge
Another learning I got from this video was that many
Americans do not have health insurance.
menstrual: a travelling singer; a musical revue
This comment was made in reference to a uniquely American form of entertainment discussed in a video documenting the history of racism in the United States. As the student understood the video,
Performers in menstrual shows were white people who made
themselves up to look black.
phamon: extreme scarcity, specifically as regards something to eat
Perhaps what we have here is a refugee from a phonetic spelling program. If it sounds like a duck it must be a duck.
Food shortages and phamon exist in many less developed countries.
pumpkin: derogatory term for a farmer; a country person with awkward manners.
One video I showed began with a clip from an old Hollywood film showing an elderly farmer bemoaning the plight of the Dust Bowl in Depression Era America, but at least one student did not show much compassion when he wrote
The jerk at the beginning of the film was a real country pumpkin.
repregnant: state of being pregnant again
In one class I argued that one way to reduce the incidence of abortion might be to teach birth control techniques to students as early as junior high school. I would not, however, go as far as the student who concluded that
Women who don’t want any more children should be sterilized
so they wont get repregnant and have to have an abortion.
supremist: one who thinks their group is better than someone else’s group
The several videos I showed dealing with numerous specific aspects of the general problem of prejudice and discrimination were the source of a great many of the entries in this Dickshunary. The following comment on a film that discussed the Ku Klux Klan and other such hate groups in our country is a case in point:
The Skin Heads are a group of white supremists who hate
black people and other foreigners.
Other foreigners? Oh well,