LEND ME YOUR EAR: SOME LEFTOVERS TO START THE NEW YEAR

While many are deciding whether or not to make Resolutions for 1993, we are considering leftovers. Not leftover New Year's Resolutions those we made in 1987 still await execution. Leftovers for today's discussion consist of word coinages assembled in 1992 but so far untouched in these columns.

First, we feel duty-bound to consider "Virg." A teacher who had been reading the Christmas Story to her charges explained that the mother of Jesus was named Mary. One youngster asked who Jesus' father was, and the teacher invited class responses. Silence prevailed briefly, then an alert lad offered this: "In the first place, that's a stupid question. If Jesus was born of a virgin, the father's name was Virg."

Who says children lack logic? This brave specimen could have a friend or brother named Robin whom everyone calls Rob. However, I hesitated to use his coinage until I spoke with my lifelong friend Virginia Siebert about taking her nickname in vain. As always, Virg was agreeable to anything I suggested.

On Christmas night, Louis Rukeyser introduced a guest on Wall Street Week, a close friend who had written a song in praise of the moderator himself. The guest offered "investperts" to denote investment experts, while questioning the help given by experts. Such is the attitude toward experts in general, and we have little objection to the coinage.

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, James Wolcott used "bitterati" in connection with doomsayers. Trouble is, he applied this neologism to the same strata of society ordinarily thought of as the "glitterati." Anyone out there care to bridge the gap? Slipperati? Your guess is as good as mine.

A museum in Philadelphia devoted to the preservation and study of insects is called the "Insectarium." An excellent creation no matter how we feel about preserving insects, though the term probably evolved with a minimum of effort, as do many of today's made-up words.

Another such appeared in U.S. News and World Report a little while back. A staffer gave us "Europessimism", explaining that the condition has deep roots in Europe. No one will ever deny that we in America have done our best to change the condition to Europtimism (my effortless coinage), though we never give up hope.

Also in U.S. News and World Report, Nov. 10 issue, Bob Holmes coined "biophilia" to describe his affinity for the natural world. This neologism combines the Greek prefix bios, meaning life, with the Greek philos, meaning a strong affinity or preference for. In my unsolicited view, "biophilia" could find its way to upcoming dictionaries, given the attention it deserves.

An unidentified networker has announced that he objects to all this "negativity" spread about by too many big shots. Perhaps his word is stronger than the usual term "negativism", a word we know. "Negativity" does suggest activity, and the speaker was lamenting the negative thinking that travels so much faster than the positive.

In my book, first prize for creating clever words and phrases in 1992 goes to Boatmen's Bank of Cape Girardeau and Jackson for "chronic habituosity." For the benefit of the uninformed, Boatmen's Bank has seven area branches with automatic telemachines that enable customers to avoid "chronic habituosity" by allowing them to conduct bank business any time of the day or night, without the usual limitations of nine-to-five hours at only one or two locations. "Chronic habituosity", perhaps we should explain, means being in a rut.

The expression is not only appealing in sound, it is useful in general context. Almost everyone suffers from the monotony of doing the same old things in the same old way. As for myself, I delight in repeating the phrase over and over again and in so doing manage to avoid the condition!