LEND ME YOUR EAR: NO CURE FOR THE OLDEST DIESEASE OF MANKIND

Many word coinages have nothing to do with the changes wrought by tech terminology. Word play never fails to catch the eye and ear, and creations not likely to reach official status may amuse us if only briefly. Some time ago, Buick declared a limited period of "Buick Qualidays." A clothing company held a "Sellabration" event. In Columbia, lights over the city treated residents to "ballumination" throughout their week-long balloon festival.

Often, non-candidates for officialdom have more staying power. Every October, SIU at Carbondale presents a nationally-recognized tuba concert known as the "Octuberfest." Also in October, the American Diabetes Association holds a "Walktoberfest" to help fund research for a cure. A farm implement company demonstrates a new and improved lawn mower to a query: "Is your weekend a Lawn Mowathon?"

Saturday night talk shows are called "Complainathons" even (or especially) by their fans. Not being an addict, we are plumbing the depths of Hades for a stronger term to describe panelists who try to out-shout each other regardless of the subject under fire.

Satire has always given rise to new coinages. U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT has offered "Polspeak" to define the language used by political candidates who expect to become Republicans before running for the Senate in 1996. On 60 Minutes, Morley Safer coined "wrestemania" to describe Chistiane Amanpour's way of seeking out stories about wrestling with foreign policies and people. In a May issue of Time, an article on soldier spies clued us in on "humint services" -- spy jargon for human intelligence. This renders my intelligence less than human. For months, I've been at a loss to retrieve an earring that disappeared into the nether regions of a dresser drawer.

Spy jargon being beyond our scope, we continue with efforts on the lighter side. Paul Harvey, plugging "Neutrogena Dandruff Shampoo," pronounced the creator of the product a "neutrogenius." My cousin Susan Skinner, of Dallas, says she grows "cucermelons" in her garden. "Cucermelons," she elaborates, are cucumbers the size of watermelons. And watermelons the size of jet planes?

From a recent essay eulogizing the virtues of cheese, we discovered that foods having the ingredients and texture of butter are categorized as "butyraceous." The essayist, a cheese lover who likes to fish, tried using a morsel of the heavenly stuff for bait. The fish snubbed the fisherman's offer. There's no accounting for tastes.

As an astrological Piscean -- a poor fish swimming in two directions at once -- I swim in only one direction if the sign points to cheese. But the fish are welcome to my share of that nutty candy bar advertised as "nutrageous."

Mary Blue, our long-time garden columnist, contributes "thermophotoperiodic" to our current list of newbies. Writing of the growth of the common petunia, she explains that given the right light at the right temperature (62 degrees), the plant will branch and flourish to the delight of every flower grower -- and, we suspect, of every photographer who catches sight of Mary's garden.

"Celebrocentric" is a term applied to celebrities who would rather advertise their status as celebrities than prove their qualifications. Many Hollywood actors, producers, and directors are said to be afflicted with this disease.

New diseases having unspellable, unpronounceable names keep baffling the world of medicine and frightening the world of man. But a simply-spelled, easily-pronounced disease that has afflicted mankind ever since words were invented has finally come to light. The writer who discovered it defines it as the "Sometime Disease," as in "I'll get around to it Sometime." The gentleman bemoans the millions wasted through fruitless research, with not one red cent devoted to "Sometime."

The age of the writer is unknown to me, but I do know that from time immemorial, everyone has been a victim of this heretofore undocumented disease. I also believe that by age 85, even this gentleman-writer will have learned there is no cure.

~Aileen Lorberg is a language columnist for the Southeast Missourian.