$ingle lady #2: Wordsmithing

When asking open-ended questions of my potential 'soul mates' (cue gag reflex), I have used one every time: "Tell me about a word that you have made up or changed the meaning of. Define and use in a sentence."

**Note: it bothers me that I do not ask "of which you have changed the meaning," but I just felt a little too grammar nazi to do so...

This question is important to me because most of my day is spent exchanging words with my friends in a language that only we understand. Some examples include:

"It's really sea bass in here." Read: it's cold aka chilly aka Chilean sea bass

"This feep in my office ate the last donut." Read: fat person aka fat peep aka feep

"APM." Short for "almost pooing myself," created to express "LOL" without uttering those terrible letters.

I could go on and on. Anyway, I wanted to see if my future man could relate to such a silly pastime.

M#2 said: "Verbing. To take a word that is normally a noun and use it as the verb of a sentence. Ex. Text me your email." He went on to say some funnier things like making fun of those who say they "summer" somewhere, but an overall YAWN.

Jay said: "Stiplify...it's the combination of Stipulate and Specify. In a sentence: They need to stiplify the terms of the contract before they can close the deal." Okay, as someone who sort of loved George W. I can't get down with this blatant ripoff of "strategery."

But! Ben (who I had written off) said: "The first thing that comes to mind is 'starfish' because my roomates were using it to describe girls that just aren't that 'into it' in the bedroom. So in the morning when I ask if they had a good night and they simply reply with with 'starfish', I know it didn't go well." Original, and descriptive. I could see myself working 'starfish' into our vocab.

I'm sure my mate's ability to create ridiculous words actually has no bearing on whether or not we'll live happily ever after. But I'm only 24 and I figure that for now, it's important to me. Maybe I should be looking for someone who is "warm hearted" or "someone I can bond with on an emotional level" (WARNING: actual answers from supposed straight men). But for now I feel the same as Mr. Big: you just want to be with the one who makes you laugh.