Insomina

Not a typo! Well, kind of a deliberate typo, anyway. It was originally the result of some random keyboard clumsiness, but then I decided I rather liked it.

If it were a word, what would it mean? It occurred to me that it might be a plausible plural of insominum (all neuter plurals end in 'a' in Latin and Greek - the Classical education: it never leaves you!)..... which could perhaps mean one of those deranged pensées that occur to you when you're suffering from insomnia.

As I am now. I have been burning the candle at both ends too much for the past two or three weeks, working long hours during the day then staying out late partying at night - and my body-clock is completely screwed. I find myself waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning, no matter how late I went to bed (seldom before midnight; usually more like 1am or 2am). It doesn't help that I have had a really evil cold - sniffles, sore throat, fever, persistent cough - for the past week and a half: that has been seriously undermining the quality of any sleep I have been getting. The black rings around my eyes are now as pronounced as a panda's. I feel as though I want to, need to sleep for 48 hours around the clock..... but it just won't happen.

But enough of that. I was going to write a little piece about invented words. It was a game that was popular with some of my buddies at University - perhaps inspired by a book that came out around that time, 'The Meaning of Liff' (a stocking-filler mini-dictionary which proposed that quaint-sounding British place names could be usefully pressed into service as nouns [sometimes as verbs or adjectives], and provided a treasure trove of humorous examples).

One particular favourite in my undergraduate circle for a while - it became quite an entrenched part of our slang, presumably rather to the bafflement of anyone else - was ept (derived, of course, from 'inept'); any piece of clumsiness or tactlessness being described as having a lack of ept or as being not very eptful.

I also rather like misle (which often seems like a more sensible back-formation of the Present Tense of 'misled' than 'mislead' does - at least to me, in my insomniful state). Also, perhaps usefully reminiscent of 'mither' (which really is a word, meaning to irritate with persistent inquiries or reminders).

Then again (an old favourite of toilet wall humour, this, long before my friends adopted it as part of their argot), there is lert. As in:

"Be a lert. Your country needs lerts!"

There are many more examples I could share with you, but my insomnified brain is suddenly coming up blank. Perhaps this is another theme I shall return to....

Or perhaps not.