Fun With Etymology

Due to my nerdy nature, I find much amusement in certain words. One of my favorites is moxie because it sounds good, has good meaning, and especially because it is named after the supposed oldest continuously produced soda. Last summer, I attempted to acquire a taste for it just so I could drink it whenever I felt low on moxie, like a superhero drinking superjuice, but even after dozens of cans, it was still foul-tastingly medicinal. In fact, it was marketed as a panacea of sorts back when carbonated beverages were still called "elixirs."

Another kind of word I really like is one that seems vague but is actually very exactly defined. A dash, for example, as in a dash of salt, is an eighth of a teaspoon. A jiffy is a hundredth of a second. I don't know any more but I would guess that these precise amounts were given after the fact. I bet a foot wasn't always 12 inches, a cup wasn't always 8 ounces, and a penis wasn't always 6.1 inches.

In the interest of my current boredom, I have decided to start giving arbitrary but exact measurements for vague terms. I therefore declare a trot to be 6 miles per hour, tone-deaf to be someone whose pitch is at least a half-tone off, an inkling to be a quarter of an ink, a glance to be a half-second look, and a mouthful to be a cylindrical form of 4.8 inches in circumference and 6.1 inches in length.