RETIRED WORDS 

They gather in diners and bars to reminisce about the old times, when they belonged in people’s mouths.

Floppy Disk is new to a group that includes old timers like Pulchritude, Icebox, and Xenotransplantation. He feels less lucky than his colleagues; britches, for example, still exist, but now they’re called pants. Dungarees became jeans, and with the new name came prestige and a higher price tag. Floppy Disks? Gone forever, both the word and the object.

Another group is formed by démodé slangs. After a couple of drinks, Bogart likes to tease Chill Pill and Talk-To-The-Hand by bragging that it was coined from a legendary actor’s on-screen chain smoking, and made immortal with the song “Don’t bogart that joint,” from the soundtrack of Easy Rider.

Truth tried to join one of the retired word groups. While claiming that it had been replaced by Alternative Facts, the word was unanimously rejected for still being relevant.

There are groups of girl words like California Widow, You Go Girl!, and Foxy. Skinny and Phat got tired of being made fun of, and left. They now belong to a group where they’re respected for what they mean, not what they sound like.

Once a year, all retired words flock to a convention at Verbatim Stadium in Dublin. There, one will find words as complicated as Omphaloskepsis and Hootenanny, and as ancient as the Victorian Benjo and Chuckaboo.