CONFABULATE

January 10th, 2010

Confabulate
\ken-‘fa-bye-‘lat\ v 1.: to talk informally : chat *2: to hold a discussion : confer 3: to fill in gaps in memory by fabrication *

During college, if you were to ask any student if they have had a favorite or even just memorable professor, it’s safe to say that almost all of them will say yes and then launch into a lecture about what it was that made him or her in such awe of this glorified educator. My senior year of college, I was privy to one such professor that without a doubt made our class chuckle at one point or another during the course of the class.
One of the first days of the semester, after the syllabus had been handed out and reviewed (enough to make anyone sorry they could read), my professor broached the subject of papers and the proper etiquette in which they should be handed to her. She specified that all papers should be stapled and not paper-clipped because paper-clips were “horny little bastards,” and like to get stuck together and it was a pain in the ass to undo them. The whole class began to giggle after looking at one another just to make sure we had heard her correctly. “Horny Little Bastards”? Did I mention she had prefaced this by saying that this could in fact be used as useless cocktail party trivia. Imagine confabulating about that!

* letter “e” is upside down creating sound of “uh”