I find it breathtakingly brief that a conversation might consist only of:
"uh..."
"Duh!"
The mere addition of a "D" and one is scolded for one's vacuity.
So as science progresses and discoveries become more and more sophisticated, I was overwhelmed with a short but tearful hysteria to discover a new set of elements in the perodic table (checking as I do every few years to see what new heavy one has weighed in) which proudly seem to have been named by lampoonists instead of scientists: the "un-un" family. This apparent double negative is actually smoothed over by listening to the sound file where the pronuciation is given as "oon, oon."
I like to make jokes about the elements. After Harry Potter, almost all the elements could be used for concocting various amusing verbal spells. Irridium, for example ought to do quite well for making things impossible to get rid of. And so on. The real fun is in making these up for oneself, no?
But here's the Unun Family Line up: Ununbium, Ununtrium, Ununquadium, Ununpentium, Ununhexium. The yet to be made official abbreviations for these are currently: Uub, Uut, Uuq, Uup, and Uuh. Obviously something going on with two, three, four, five, and sixteen? But what? What does it mean to "unun" a number? But I have a hypothesis. Suppose a Magus were to "unpentium" his computer, later regret it, and then want to have it restored? Well, Ununpentium ought to work for that.
And let see. Hexe is Deutsch for witch, and so unhexium would take off a witch's spell-- and the witch could put it back on again with Ununhexium. Yes, it all seems to make sense to me.
And then of course, just remembering it now, the use of the word unobtainium in the movie "The Core." It turns out via Wikipedia, that this is a word often used to describe materials either hard to come by, or impossible to create, and used by scientists themselves. Perhaps we are not so far from the days of alchemistry-like thinking as I supposed. Another faux-element word among scientists is: handwavium. For engineers there is: wishalloy. Ah, so why was I laughing?
But at least Toastmaster "uh-counters" will now need to figure out whether an uh is truly an uh-- or a reference to Ununhexium. Good luck with that...
