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cactus
      For humorous effect, a talk show host has been using cauci (pronounced cawk-eye) as the plural of caucus. What's done with humorous intent is, of course, exempt from pedantic reproaches. ("Fie! Caucus is from Algonquian, not Latin!") Nevertheless, it makes an amusing point of departure for a pet peeve of mine. To wit:
      We have this little stock of words which have been part of the English language since before it was English, and still we hesitate to use them with standard English plurals. Webster's allows the English forms as second-choice options, but most people spring for pseudo-Latin when they want to be thought well-educated.
      It isn't as if the words themselves would mind, if we Anglicized them. Cactuses comes just as trippingly to the tongue as cacti, algas as readily as algae, and forums as naturally as fora.
      Fancifully, I can imagine one of these words with tears of joy in its eyes, as it joins with other imported words in a naturalization ceremony, and is finally -- after centuries -- granted full citizenship. It's not only that the word would wear its English endings with pride, but that it would no longer have to listen to the grating sound of a nominative plural case ending used in one of the oblique cases. Not to mention the embarrassment of being pronounced so as to change its gender.
      Take cactus, for example. Imagine you're a tour guide, filling up some time with the following patter:
      In the desert areas around Tucson, there are many cacti. Hiking trails at the lower elevations are closely surrounded by cacti. When you hike, be careful not to brush cacti. It won't matter to the cacti, but it will matter intensely to you. Don't try to pull out the needles from one hand with the fingers of your other: the needles of some of these cacti are barbed at both ends, and you'll wind up with both hands stuck.
      As you finish this disquisition, you notice a pained look upon one tourist's face. It turns out that he's a vacationing representative of the Vatican. (All right, already, the story is becoming absurd,but who else might have actual practice speaking Latin in earnest?)
      The thing is, those case endings which the Romans added to their nouns were not just verbal curlicues, invented to provide full employment for Latin teachers. They conveyed vital signals as to what was done to whom or to what in the sentence, and with which. In Latin (if they had stabs as a verb), BRUTUS STABS JULIUS would be the same as JULIUS STABS BRUTUS: an obvious typographical error in the headline, leaving you in doubt who's up and who's down. The victim should end in -um, not -us; case endings, not word order, are the clue. So here's how the disquisition about cactuses should go, if we insist upon Latin plurals:
      In the desert areas around Tucson, there are many cacti. Hiking trails at the lower elevations are closely surrounded by cactis. When you hike, be careful not to brush cactos. It won't matter to the cactis, but it will matter intensely to you. Don't try to pull out the needles from one hand with the fingers of your other: the needles of some of these cactorum are barbed at both ends, and you'll wind up with both hands stuck.
      Would it spoil some vast, eternal plan, if we were to use cactuses throughout?

californicate
the word Coloradans sometimes use to describe runaway development of the Denver metro area and the Front Range of the Rockies; from California + fornicate , since about 1990]

calling batch
[1990] intoxicating drugs mixed, or cut with inert substances, which leave the user wanting more (jonesing)

candlestuck
to depart a room with a candlestick [H.James, The Turn of The Screw]

canned
when I went through basic training in 1984, recruits in the US Air Force were canned after their name tapes were sewn on their green uniforms

carbon community
the physical world, as opposed to the virtual; see meatspace

case of the ass
to be angry; He has a real case of the ass today.

cat, not enough room to swing
see swing a cat

celts
I told my wife, "Celts do knot work."
Wife: "They don't?"
Me: "They do."
W: "Do what?"
M: "Knot work."
W: "What do they do?"
M: "Knot work....."
Bob Klahn, FIDO Words conference, June 96

cerebrovascular accident
modern term for a stroke [FIDO Words conference, Nov 95]

chainsaw consultant
an outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands [from e-mail, Aug 97]

cheaters
eyeglasses [R.Chandler, The Long Good-Bye, 1953]

cheese
software [CMU]

cheesebox
computer [CMU]; compare pizza box

chief
a warrant officer in the U.S. Army; warrants are also properly addressed as mister by those who don't know better, but because candidate warrant officers are derisively addressed as mister in their basic training, they expect to be called chief after promotion from Warrant Officer 1 to higher grades; compare gunner

chill
to relax; also chill out, chilling

china cat
[drugs] heroin with a purity approaching 90% (AP story)

chinning
[1995] chatting

chubby
an erection

circie
When we moved to NC some years back, someone handed me a pack of Juicy Fruit gum. They said, "Here's a circe (pronounced SIR-cee)." From the blank look on my face, they had to explain that a circe was an unexpected pleasantry. [unknown]

clam, the
Chlamidya [alt.usage.english, Aug 96]

clockers
drug dealers; from working around the clock

clue
the phrase to have (or not have) a clue has been worked to death since about 1980, although I have heard some interesting derivations; clueless describes somebody who doesn't seem to have an understanding about anything going on around them, while clueful describes the opposite kind of person; and I've recently (1997) heard the phrase the clue bird's gonna take a big shit on him in a minute to describe the eureka effect ; the phrase I'm going to buy him a clue has a meaning that ranges from telling a person what's going on to beating him around the head and shoulders in the hopes that will make him see the light -- compare with lightbulbed, the nickel dropped

cluster fuck
a group of people avoiding work; compare with skate, get over

cob
-vt- [1970-80, mid-Wisconsin] to steal

cobweb
a WWW site that never changes

cocoa, I should
Ray Puxley's excellent Cockney Rabbit - A Dick'n'Arry of Rhyming Slang gives two forms: "Tea and Cocoa" and "Coffee and Cocoa". These are rhyming slang for "say so". The first form is often used in full and is used in a straightforward manner. "Coffee and Cocoa" is almost always reduced to just "cocoa" and as Puxley remarks, "...[is] either [used as] a term of disbelief... or as one of factual emphasis" It's usually used in a sarcastic or disbelieving fashion - "The Tories win the next election? I should bleedin' coco." [UK - Steve Austin, alt.usage.english]

coonass
a cajun; I heard a cajun call his in-laws coonass relatives

cooter
vagina see sex

copulation, euphemisms for
(to) bag; a bit of the old in-out, in-out [A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick], a bit of the rough [Brit]; boinking;(to) bone; do the nasty, ~ the evil deed, ~ the bump and grind; drive the flesh trolley to tuna town; give (her) the high hard one; make the beast with two backs [Shakespeare, Othello]; ro(d)ger [Brit]; roll in the hay [Chandler, The Long Good-Bye, 1953]; rumpy-pumpy [Brit]; run it up the tan track; shagging (Brit.); spank (her)
Note: practically all the euphemisms for copulation are considered at least mildly offensive by most people, and often all references to sexual activity are considered very offensive and should not be uttered in mixed company
see sex

core dump
vomit [unix; before the software system crashes, it will make a core dump -- save the operating system to a file -- to preserve the operating system from damage]

couch
to relax; to watch television

couch potato
somebody who sits on the couch most of the day, watching television

couple of yards
a couple hundred dollars
      How much you shake him for? I bet it's not more than a couple of yards.
      What's that? Couple of yards?
      Two hundred bucks.
 - R.Chandler, The Long Good-Bye, 1953

Cox's army
see enough to feed

crabfat
a naval aviator; it had something to do with the colour of their uniforms and the colour of the underbelly of a crab. -Rick Collins, FIDO Words conference, Mar 96

crash
enroll in an over-enrolled class [Berkley]

cube
1: -vi- to remain in one's room and do little or nothing; All we did yesterday was cube in front of the TV. see couch
2: -n- a room

cube farm
a large, open office divided into cubicles; from e-mail, Aug 97

cunnilingus, euphemisms for
felch; go down (also refers to fellatio); muff dive; eat some bearded clam, ~ hair pie, ~ taco (salad)
Note: practically all the euphemisms for cunnilingus are considered at least mildly offensive by most people, and often all references to sexual activity are considered very offensive and should not be uttered in mixed company
see sex

cyborg
Norbert Weiner coined the term in 1948, but it was used in French ("cybernatique") by Ampere back in 1834. [OED]
One of the first notable cyborgs appeared in Cordwainer Smith's Scanners Live In Vain written in 1950. [FIDO Science Fiction conference, Nov 95]

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