Blong!

Blong!

I invented something last night. Yes while all of you were fluffing your pillows and getting ready for bed I was working very hard on my invention. What did I create? It wasn’t the combustible engine, or even the Internet as I knew those things had already been invented, and as all great inventors know, inventing something that has already been invented gives you very little satisfaction. My creation was a little more ethereal. I will look ethereal in the dictionary when I have a moment, let me continue.

My lack of any mechanical or basic handiwork skill eliminated me from going to my workbench in the garage because I do not possess a workbench in the garage. My grade eleven chemistry mark of 62% also stopped me from going downstairs to the beaker test tube infested laboratory that, like that workbench, does not exist. I use my finished basement like most do, as a storage area for Christmas decorations and an archive for my Spirograph art collection. I decided that because I am an English major from University of Toronto, it was time to leverage my education.

It happened rather accidently as I was writing a very dull blog for the business world. I knew this blog was particularly dull, because I kept dozing off as I wrote it, and that is normally just the reaction of the readers. To keep me conscious, I visited my own Sound Cloud, where I store all of the brilliant songs I have composed that no one but my family, prison inmates and a very old nun from Massachusetts seem to visit. And then it happened. I invented a word. I knew it was a new word because the Microsoft Word Office software that I may have not paid for, kept underlining my invention with a scornful red line.

I knew I was on to something when I went into the basement of my house that does not have a laboratory, but does have a dictionary. I marched to the many bookshelves that store the thousands of books I will read some day. I looked up the word I had invented and it was not there. I checked the Thesaurus, which was surprisingly no where near the dictionary as a copyright precaution. The Thesaurus is not near the dictionary because the books are organized based on the attraction of the front covers. I looked up my new word and once again discovered not only was the word not there, but more importantly, was the realization that there were no other synonyms, homonyms, antonyms or even acronyms for my invention. My excitement was overwhelming, as I now finally understood how Newton felt when he invented gravity. As promised, I looked up ethereal in the dictionary, and clearly that is the proper word to describe what I have done here.

Like a well-written spy novel, I have forced you to read the first four paragraphs, until the mystery of this literary breakthrough is revealed. To reward your tested patience, I present to you the word Blong. Creating a blog with a corresponding original song, regardless of the shallow connectivity of the two pieces will now and forever, be called a Blong. This red underlined noun combines the word blog and song, and if you ever use this word without my permission, you owe me forty-seven cents. I appreciate this donation, and because of my new highly profitable revenue stream, I feel it is my duty, to help to you insert this word in your daily discourse.

Imagine you are in a team meeting, and the presenter is on his seventy-second Power Point slide to drive home the importance of the subtlety in the change of the new marketing strategy. As the pasted on smiles of the audience begin to crack, the presenter stops looking at his marvelous slide and asks, “Are there any questions so far?”

After the guy beside you proclaims the utter brilliance of the new strategy, which isn’t really a question at all, but I’ve heard that this does happen at staff meetings occasionally, raise your hand. This is your moment to expand the vocabulary of your audience.

The presenter, because he has been to presenter school, will acknowledge your waiving hand and prompt you by saying “Yes Derrick.” He will say this even if your name isn’t Derrick, because that was the guy’s name who asked the question in his training class.

This is the moment you will say, “I too like where you are going here, with the company’s money, and I was wondering, does this not remind you of the Blong strategy?”

The presenter will look at you like he understands what you are saying, because that is what great presenters do. I recommend you continue.

“I really like how you have married two very good ideas into one great idea. This is truly a blongy idea!” (blongy will be the adjective form of my word, though I am not sure if I will make any money on any of the derivatives of my discovery)

With that brilliant insight, your next promotion is a virtual lock.

Another obvious opportunity to increase the use of my word will occur when you are in the recreation room of your uncle’s very paneled basement. Your very drunk, former athletic aunt will suggest a game of Ping, but won’t remember the next word. Ask her if the word she is struggling to remember rhymes with “Blong “, and without too much embarrassment, she will come up with the difficult follow up word she was struggling to say. This will also allow her to keep her self-esteem and integrity despite continually spilling her many martinis.

Freud talked about the Id, the ego and the superego in his famous work exposing the fragility of the human mind. The book to support this is somewhere in my basement, but I really have to get to work so I will paraphrase to end my first Blong while hopefully capturing what Freud was trying to get at.

I believe I have achieved superego status with this discovery. If you ever have the pleasure of inventing something of your own, you will know how I feel. It’s a mixture of invincibility, immortality and a certain sense that I could start my own religion.

I do anticipate calls from Webster, Oxford and Wikipedia very shortly as I help them with their definitions, to accurately help them place where the new word Blong, will belong. Now those two words, blong and belong sound suspiciously similar. Let me declare right now, if the person who invented the word belong sues me, I will use this article as evidence in my defence.

As all great inventors will tell you, genius is a double-edged sword. I can’t help feeling this gift is both a blessing and a burden. Kind of like the high school athlete who used to get all the girls. My ego is clearly at an all time high as I conclude. That will serve as my transition statement from blog to song, or as we will all say with much more regularity moving past this day of my invention, the Blong!

 

Please click below to allow yourself the full experience of the world’s first Blong.

https://soundcloud.com/dennisford-1/you-cant-live-without-my-love