3 more things about made-up languages

NEWS ITEM The linguist hired for "Avatar" describes the constructed language he created, admits he's the sole fluent user.

• • • Klingon -- Trekker couple tried to raise their son as a native speaker; decided he wanted a normal life instead.

• • • Esperanto -- A language constructed to unify European languages, and George Soros is a native speaker. Dec. 15 is the 150th birthday of its creator. There's a prog-rock band (I own an LP... go figure); the fact their site has English and French versions says a lot about constructed languages.

• • • Elvish -- J.R.R. Tolkien's books inspire obsession over Elves.

3 more words to describe hyperbole, deflections, lies and distortions

EXAMPLE Justice in the long-ago case of the rape of a young girl isn't the important story. What's important is to dwell on an industry that has a lot of Democrats.

• • • Mucopurulent -- An emission of mucus and pus.

• • • Paranym -- Euphemism; word whose meaning is altered to conceal evasion.

• • • Verbicide -- Deliberate distortion of the sense of a word.

3 more words that are paradoxically ironic oxymorons, sorta

NEWS ITEM HBO's "Bored to Death" is about a slacker private eye with "bored" alluding to palpable disinterest but the word is also a metaphor for intensity, as in drilling, which would be a different show if it were about dentistry.

• • • Strike -- In bowling it's a hit and in baseball it's a miss; for labor, it's a job action of job inaction; for plants, it's about expanding, yet for theater, it's about reducing.

• • • Cleave -- to adhere [Old English cleofian; related to Old High German klebēn to stick], to split apart [Old English clēofan; related to Old Norse kljūfa, Old High German klioban, Latin glūbere to peel].

• • • Cop-- is to steal and a guy whose job it is to prevent stealing and an act of admitting and an act of denying, as in "After copping out, cop copped to the copping."