SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Jobbery, nutjob and Jabberwocky.

Welcome to another installment of "SHANE's Excellent New Words," a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why new words?

Why not the old, familiar words?

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about trying to show you're smarter than the rest of them. To the contrary, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even municipal corporate attorneys are eligible for this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, for those of us compelled to witness the inexorable decline in our property values owing to the fallacy of the one-way downtown pass-through interstate, all we have is time on our hands -- moments enough for us to learn something.

This week, we have a trio of new words, beginning with jobbery.

jobbery
[job-uh-ree]

noun

1. the conduct of public or official business for the sake of improper private gain.

Origin of jobbery
1825-1835; jobber + -y

Historical Examples

Let us oppose it as a scheme of jobbery, devised with a view to the establishment of offices and appointments.

Jobbery is a word used primarily by speakers of British English. Meanwhile in America, we have lots and lots of nutjobs, especially in a presidential election year.

nutjob

Completely insane or crazy person. Someone who has totally lost the plot.

I prefer combining these two to produce nutjobbery, or the state of affairs when the loser of the plot conducts public business for private gain.

Now, such a gibbering idiot genuinely may be a nut job, spouting gibberish while engaged in jobbery at the Bored of Works.

Or, we might cut out the middle man entirely and go straight to purposeful, poetic nonsense: Jabberwocky.

Jabberwocky

"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of an animal called "the Jabberwock" ... (it) is considered one of the greatest nonsense poems written in English. Its playful, whimsical language has given English nonsense words and neologisms such as "galumphing" and "chortle".

Twas brilig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.