C

Cadwalk. "Catwalk" may have been a word New York exported to the world, but it was also good intuition for Laura to assume that we failed to import the sound of the ancient T in the middle. Generally, Newyorkese beats the spine out of that letter. It breaks it down to a soft d {think about what happened to the "sat" from "satisfaction": when it got everything it wanted (from the Latin satis, "enough, sufficient") it fell flat and became "sad". In both sound and history, sad quite literally sat}. So when one destroyed Sunday morning she said, "Chris, I'm just not ready yet to face that cadwalk on Smith street" one has to understand my response of "Really? You think the men in this neighborhood have better fashion sense than the women?" Once I finally got her out of the house it was time for my hair of the dog. I tried every rationale I could think of to get her to agree. When my reasoning failed I even suggested I'd be able to find more suitable reasons once I got that first nip in me. "You really are some sort of cadfly, aren't you mon amour?" To which again, I did not find correctable. In fact, by now I was in the swing of this and (after that nip) I returned fire with, "So now I'm finally ready to go back home and show you that cadget of mine."
"Scusa?"
"Y'know, the one I got from Old Norse? The one that once meant "nail, spike?"
"Cazzo!"

cad + catwalk = cadwalk

-- Chris Leo


Cattivated by her scheming ways I couldn’t peel myself away though her tricks were transparent and her deceit embarrassingly blatant. It’s amazing these women think men can’t recognize the face of evil when it wrings its wicked ways. How much more upsetting is it though that we succumb to them none the less, if even for fleeting moments? “Meet me for coffee in Gramercy now, you’re buying” was all the message read and all it took to have me peddling as fast as I could to get there before some other douche assumed my empty throne. “Why does your friend Matt only like ugly girls?” was how the conversation began and yet I sat there still through the wearisome and expensive tea she sipped while divining the means by which she'd off her competition according to the settling of the leaves at the bottom of the mug. You’d think such a cunning beast would be less careless than to leak the information so early on that there wasn’t even any tail in this for me, but not only did I sit there still, I covered the bill.

cattiva (“bad” in Italian) + “captivate” = the numbing venom of diabolism

-- Chris Leo


Cenalty is a penalty incurred from the breaching of table etiquette. Conveniently coincidental, "cena" in Italian means "dinner" while "cena" in Old Slavic means "honor". Phonetically the same, "chain" in English reflects the aversion many people feel towards the shackled trappings of table culture. When the pancha's parked beneath the plate it's human nature to create a counter balance to the ingestions with repulsions (often irate) heading in reverse out the same pipe. Uns is what happened to nos when it crossed the Alps. Before it did, the Romans called the table "mensa", which doubled as the high and mighty "alter top". But alas, when Cesar crossed the Rubicon the temples kept toppling. Soon "mensa" was replaced with "table" (a word that comes from Umbria, below the Rubicon) and the cenobile will forever remain pondering the implications of our (uns, nos) unstable table.

When a table is full with food it is "la tavola" in Italian, when it's empty it's "il tavolo". "Kenos" is Greek for "empty" and therefore the worst cenalty imaginable is one table clearing cenolty. Another word that came from "Kenos" is our English "cage" which brings this whole discussion full circle: when the customs that once made a culture so strong become rules rather than choices we find ourselves confined by refinement.

-- Chris Leo


Cereblown. One celestial (Ceres, dwarf planet), goddess given (Ceres, Roman goddess of growth and motherly love) mind-blowing (cerebellum, which comes pre-reciped for the explosion: "cere", from Proto Indo European "ker" forms the root of nearly every word we use + "bellum" as the Latin word for "war" that naturally results when one adds together nearly every word we use). A cerebro as an infinitely inspiring best friend. Conversations with cerebros begin with "No way bro!" and end with "No way bro!"

-- Chris Leo


Chezy comes from French colonial Ponticherry and was the once ailing sibling of British India's "cheezy", having both been birthed from the Urdo chiz for "a thing", until it's recent revival. By the time "chiz" made it back to England it meant "a big thing" and therefore "showy", from whence we get the modern meaning of "cheezy". Remnants of transitory ideas can still be found in the idiom "the big cheese" (a self-inflated V.I.P.) and the name "Tyrone" ("big cheese" in Greek). One would think though that the French "chez", which already denotes something usually large, should have taken root before the British version of the Urdu word (think about how the German word for cheese, "kase", already sounds like the Latin word for house "casa" that eventually became "chez" in France), but it was the concept in general the French had difficulty with. Chezy lingered in limbo for a hundred years, kept alive by only the occasional chimerical humorist, until the commodifiction of Ernesto "Che" Guevara cleared a parting in the woods. Through four continents and four languages, operating clandestinely as the guerilla Guevara himself, chezy finally found its coup. "Yeah it's true that dreadlocks on white people go hand in hand with chezy red manifestations on dormitory walls, but I'm expecting Johan's misplaced enthusiasm to mature into the gung-ho ability to make millions after graduation. If only I can wait these drum circles out I'm sure I'll strike gold."

Che + queso = que cheso! Fauxmage ("fake cheese")will be the French equivalent when the concept congeals.

-- Chris Leo


Chibby has relatives in every language, yet it's still a concept women have difficulty grasping. In Spain, morbosa is the twisted desire for something supinely and slatternly supple. Gordita is its Colombian relative. Porcine, "poor" + "cino" (Italian for "Chinese"), is a Newyorkese reappropriation of "swinelike" to describe Asian breasts raised on American carbs and steroid injected meats. Una peligrasa, is a dangerously (peligroso) fat (grasa) Dominicana the average Jack Sprat might think twice before hitting. La coltoletta In Italian, "knife" (coltello) + "cutlet" (cotoletta) is chibby's coincidental calque. La fettunta (a "greasy piece" in Tuscan)is closest to gordita. In Scottish a "chib" is a filthy little oft homemade knife and "chubby" is generally the form of the body below the sharp tongue that begins its jabbings after several stouts when you just came in peace, hence "I don't know what it is about that chibby thing hugging the bar, she seems to hate me but I just can't get enough." If the bloating falls on the side of the aggressor instead or as well, it is very likely that someone got chibbed last night.

"chib" (a knife) + "chubby" = the possessive lusting to become a male praying mantis

-- Chris Leo


Clusterphobia. Dan, Mary, Matt, yes. Susan, Sheila, Kevin, Matt, yes too. Susan, Dan, Kevin, Rachel, Mark, Franklin, Ok. Dan, Mary, Matt, Susan, Kevin, Rachel, Mark, Sheila, Franklin, Nicola, no way. One can't taste the fontina through the cinque formaggio. Fitzgerald, the king of the party believed 12 was the magic number. "Cugnamento" is a Marchigiano term for large social groups inability to squeeze through a door, and hence the party lingers awkwardly in the doorway for several hours until dissipation in defeat, night dead.

-- Chris Leo, Marcellus Hall


A complament is both a diss and compliment dished at once, a compliment con lamentations. “You really are some guinea aren’t you? Will I ever see you without some of mamma’s sauce or some other stained right next to that dirty swatch of grease you can’t seem to get out of that guinea-t from that old Fiat you're always fixin' on that big fat gunt of yours? What? you eatin' while you're fixin' you guinea you?" also means “you lead the good life that close to the ground.” Related to but different from the German compliment that hits as bluntly as only children and retards are supposed to, “Your last band was very good. A bit trendy and not quite excellent, but very very good. You’re new band, not so much.”

-- Chris Leo


When a claim of coñosseur accidentally slips dentally from its safeguarding mentally, it autophages itself into an abetting that abeds only the loser da solo into the star position; good thing the pizza stained consolation humiliations remain till morning to remind you of hubris’ ever overarching. Keep that shit tight, holmes. All your cred curdles if you let it tumble out. A well placed faux fumble though? That’s another thing entirely. Tell your Latina in English you’re a coñosseur of all the finer things, blush when she blushes, follow it with a "what?", and we just might be talking.

“connoisseur” comes from the Latin “cognoscere”, “to know”, but the only thing certain about the Spanish “el coño”, “pussy”, is that no one knows nothin’ about it and those that do, like our coñosseur, aren't talking. In my story “Gran Raccordo Annulare, You Spin Me Right ‘Round” in “Feathers Like Leather” I suggest it was an Aragon import following the conquest of Southern Italy. "l'icona" is "icon" in proper Italian, but in Sicilian it's "la cona"; somewhere inbetween the two (with a little help from metathesis and then the further telephone game transfer from Catalan to Castilian) is it such a leap to imagine "il cona" becoming "el coño"? The Pussy as The Icon. However, "il cogno" is a Latin measurement for oil, making "how much oil can your thing take? Shall I lend you my dip stick?" another fantastic candidate. But then the Spanish have also been known to squeeze Latin words short (i.e. "settimana" to "semana") making the argument that "el coño" comes from "il cognato" (now meaning "brother-in-law", it stemmed originally from the Latin “cum nato”, "from birth", think “cognate” -- making the pussy the place we come from) yet another valid possibility – but don’t bother with this mess unless you’re looking for the recipe to getting lost or sleeping alone. “Hysterikos” was a fervent attack of the womb in ancient Greek and “hysterical” has since come to mean something similar, but inbetween there and here the Latin “hystericus” was so much more accepting. Being simply a state of the womb, it carried no tone. This is 101evident to the coñosseur who lets it slide, casually wombing with the wombly.

-- Chris Leo


Consolidate. Counselor led me astray, the council concocted reasons to debate the ish for days, there are 300 channels on my cable console but not a drop to drink, and certainly there's no solace to be found in the way the constable thinks, lots of things to keep me busy but with very little sense: a palm tree, a beach, a cocktail and a peach, condense.

con + sole + date = bring it back in, set a date with the sun

-- Chris Leo


Creatative is an idea for those who envision creation and imitation solely as valves for novelty with different shaped nozzles; the former guzzles while the latter’s a muzzle, but they both give it shape. I invite those who don't see things this way to imitate an imitator or translate a book back into its original language and report back on the end result. Creations survey novelty in macro while the approximations of imitations de facto disclose novelty on the micro; in between, the creatative piece strikes a harmonious balance. The Beatles “Rubber Soul” is a creatative masterpiece. For the gamut of understandable reasons, when black American musicians of the 60’s criticized white musicians as plagiarists they’d call them “plastic soul”. When after five albums the Beatles began (openly) venturing away from these alleged synthetic roots, it was apt brilliance to name that initial album “Rubber Soul”. And ever consistent with creatativeness, “Rubber Soul” may be one of the greatest selling albums of all time, but it never had a number one hit. Poser is creatative's Mercian relative. Like poseur pronounced sans accent, a poser poses a question in his approach at imitation: is this or is this not something new?

creatative = only material goods are actually thievable

-- Chris Leo