'Twas brillig and the Hannity tweet

David Letterman was the first person I ever heard observe, during an interview, that a certain combination of words had never been put together before. I don't remember what was said, but his observation hit me as shockingly plausible. Ever since I've been on the lookout for "neophrasisms."

How many words are there in the English language? The folks behind the Oxford English Dictionary say, "there is no single sensible answer to this question" but note the OED contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use. Throw in technical and regional vocabularies and the OED says there are at least a quarter million words in English.

Even with that it still tickles to observe that the following combination of words, noted this week, has quite likely never before occurred:

Cons: Implausibly large urethra

When you start to look for them, you realize how frequently this occurs. They often appear as headlines, like Green Youth Tweet for Clean Energy at Climate Hearings, which sounds more ridiculous the more you repeat it. Hannity Offers To Be Waterboarded For Charity. Has anyone ever said or written those words before today? No way!

This phenomenon happens a lot when you have kids. Why is the ham in your armpit? I actually spoke those words, probably the first person ever to do so.

What's the point? Maybe it's this: Hoops maybe this weekend you at St. John's will play. Let me know. Tip at 8:00 a.m. Saturday.