Desploogination

Some of you have commented on my occasional use of the word, “desploogination.”

First, in all honesty, I cannot claim to have coined the word. “Desploogination” is a term that has been around for millennia.

Its earliest use can be traced to Ancient Greece.

The first recorded use of the modern word, “desploogination,” is found in the writings of the ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, in describing how he released his frustrations after long nights trying to perfect the theorem which today bears his name!

Although widespread use of the word “desploogination” occasionally lapsed (the term is never used in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales), it eventually sprang back into the common vernacular. The term had regained popularity in Shakespeare’s era and appears repeatedly in his early drafts of Romeo and Juliet (though the term was ultimately deleted from the final version at the insistence of his publisher). Shakespeare also uses the word “desploogination” in his play “Strumpets of the Cotswolds” which, sadly, only came out in paperback.

In our modern era the word, “desploogination” has again been popularized by luminaries such as Sigmund Freud, Pee Wee Herman, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump (before he lost his capacity to remember or pronounce polysyllabic words).