A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man

Hypothetical Bias welcomes guest blogger Mark Holmes, a health economist at UNC-Sheps (a branch campus of the UNC in Sheps, NC). A few hours after declining my hypo-bias invitation, we enjoyed his first post.

I'm here in Charleston, SC. After sitting through a few hours of a SSC of the SAFMC meeting (if you don't know what that is, what are you doing at this blog?), I receive this email from Mark:

two things i know about you:

1. you like wikipedia
2. you like TV

i think you like the simpsons.

this is funny. i think it's a cromulent link for hypothetical-bias

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made-up_words_in_The_Simpsons

My SSC-mates were irritated by my out-loud laughter the rest of the meeting (by the way, mark writes in lower case ... like e.e. cummings and bell hooks, that's how you'll know it is his post).

While Mark sends funny emails, he is, perhaps, best known for taking me to a UNC-UK basketball game in Chapel Hill and forbidding me from wearing my UK t-shirt. Nevertheless, the Wildcats won big over the Sean May-less 'Heels. We also saw Binghamton almost beat Carolina during the what's-his-name-era.

By the way, if you don't know my spouse, she is a grown-up version of Lisa Simpson.

And yes, the SSC meeting left me brain deadly.

Update: Hypothetical Bias was subsequently subtitled: A Cromulent Economics Blog:

Cromulent

When schoolteacher Edna Krabappel hears the Springfield town motto, "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man," she comments she'd never heard of the word embiggens before moving to Springfield. Miss Hoover, another teacher, replies, "It's a perfectly cromulent word".

Later in the same episode, while talking about Homer's audition for the role of town crier, Principal Skinner states "He's embiggened that role with his cromulent performance."

Based on the context in which Miss Hoover uses the word cromulent, we can interpret that it means "legitimate" or "appropriate." Based on the way Principal Skinner uses it, it can be interpreted as meaning something similar to "more than acceptable" or "more than adequate," these usages would also (in an assumed lexical context) satisfy Miss Hoover's use of the word. Lisa uses it later in that episode, when instead of telling the truth about Jebediah Springfield, she accepts that the myth and the made-up words have inspirational value.

Both "embiggen" and "cromulent" were quickly adopted and used by Simpsons fans. Cromulent has taken on an ironic meaning, to say that something is not at all legitimate and in fact spurious.

In the 2005 Xbox game Jade Empire, the player meets a man who uses made-up and mispronounced words. When the player confronts the man with this, the man claims that one of the words he used was "cromulent", an obvious reference to The Simpsons.

While this word is rumoured to appear in the Blackadder Series Three episode, "Ink and Incapability," a scan of the posted script shows it not to appear.

"Cromulent" has since appeared in the Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English. (lookup via reference.com.)

Comments

So if Jammie is a grown-up version of Lisa, who are you?