The Wednesday Word: Absquatulate

In the mid-19th century, people decided that it was really fun and hilarious to make up longwinded, silly words that vaguely resembled Latin but actually just meant nothing. Believe it or not, a lot of the words have survived, including "discombobulated" and "rambunctious." I wish "absquatulate" was one of those lucky few.

I'm fascinated with the idea of the Irish Goodbye. If you've not heard of it, it's when someone leaves a party/event/gathering/etc. without saying goodbye to anybody. I love this. I do this. I enjoy doing this. It brings me joy.

​Basically, to absquatulate is to perform the Irish Goodbye. The fact that it was once just a silly grouping of sounds that made some people in the 1830s laugh and is now a word found in the dictionary but not actually used by anybody seems very Irish Goodbye-ish to me. Like it left the party, no one even realized it was at the party, but then someone puts a photo of it on Facebook the next week and everyone's like, "Who's she?"

Happy absquatulating. 
​GU