Yo Momma Vocabulary Builder Vocab through Jokes!

UBIQUITOUS Yo momma’s so ubiquitous, when she sits around the house, she sits around the house! U-biq-ui-tous (yoo BIK wi tuhs): adj. being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time Ubiquitous does not mean fat or huge, but rather “seemingly everywhere.” Paris Hilton is ubiquitous. Jerry Bruckheimer is ubiquitous: it seems like his name is attached to every movie or TV show that comes out. Ubiquitous advertising helped turn the iPod into a phenomenon. Nothing is more ubiquitous than Starbucks: you can’t walk ten feet without hitting one. Starbucks is so ubiquitous that one day, you might see a Starbucks in the Lincoln Memorial, or in your home, or even in another Starbucks. Ubiquity or ubiquitousness is the noun, though both are anything but ubiquitous: you rarely see the noun form.

EMACIATED Yo momma’s so emaciated, she can hula hoop in a Fruit Loop. E-ma-ci-a-ted (i MAY shee ay tid): adj. very thin, especially from disease, hunger, or cold Emaciated isn’t just skinny. It’s too skinny, unhealthy-looking, skeletal. Think Olsen twins, supermodels, Gollum from Lord of the Rings, and Ally McBeal. Gandhi’s hunger strike left him emaciated. In Hollywood, there are a lot of “hunger strikes without the causes,” so to speak, spurring some social critics to declare that we live in an “Emaciation Nation.” The dying, withering-away look has become in vogue, a trend that could make you conclude that America’s soul is currently emaciated.

PALLID Yo momma’s skin is so pallid, snowflakes leave stain marks. Pal-lid (PAL id): adj. pale, usually as a result of poor health; lacking vitality The good thing about the word pallid is that it resembles the word “pale,” and it actually means “pale.” Normally, a question like that on the SAT tries to trick you by offering a multiple choice answer that sounds like the word, but actually isn’t the right definition. You get so fed up, you start filling in the answer sheet “DC CAB, DC CAB” and so on. But pallid is pale and, as such, can mean “lacking in radiance or vitality; dull” (pallid prose, for example).

HIRSUTE Yo momma’s so hirsute, she bathes with a Rug Doctor! Hir-sute (hur SUIT or HUR suit): adj. hairy; covered with hairs The easiest way to remember what hirsute means is to think of “hair suit.” It means hairy. Very hairy. King Kong is hirsute. Austin Powers got a lot of comic mileage with an overly hirsute chest. Since he was a character unfrozen from the 1960’s, he was convinced that women loved his hirsuteness, but alas, it’s a new millennium. The character Borat has hirsute thighs, two words you seldom want to see together.

VORACIOUS Yo momma’s so voracious, her blood type’s Ragu. Vo-ra-cious (vuh RAY shus): adj. wanting vast quanities of food; having a huge appetite for anything If your momma has a voracious appetite, she is always hungry. She looks at the menu and says, “Yes.” She eats Wheat Thicks. In a more general sense, voracious can mean having a rampant appetite for any pursuit or activity. Yo momma could devour crossword puzzles voraciously. Cereal mascots have insanely voracious appetites for their product, almost to the point of addiction. You often hear the term “voracious reader” to describe someone who devours books – figuratively speaking, of course. You seldom hear the term “voracious television watcher,” though, in truth, there are far more of those.

CORPULENT Yo momma’s so corpulent, when her beeper goes off, people think she’s backing up. Cor-pu-lent (CORE pyoo luhnt): adj. excessively fat, portly, stout Corpulence is a growing problem with today’s youth, according to many recent studies. Here’s a quick test: if the sports you play involve hand controls and looking at a TV screen, you might be at risk of becoming corpulent. Many sitcoms feature corpulent men orbited by beautiful, emaciated women. Just like in real life. Despite its meaning, there is something polite-sounding about the word corpulent, making this insult sound almost dignified. It just goes to show you that the sound of a word, as well as its meaning, can create effect.

MALAPROPISM Yo-Yo Ma is so fat, he has to hold his breath to play his cello—wait a second. That’s not right. These are “yo momma” jokes, not “Yo-Yo Ma” jokes. Shoot, we always get those confused! Some of you may know that Yo-Yo Ma is a renowned classical cellist. We just made a particular kind of mistake. It’s called a malapropism. Mal-a-prop-ism (MAL uh prop iz uhm): n. ridiculous misuse of a word, especially by confusing it with one that sounds similar A malapropism is so called after Mrs. Malaprop, a character noted for her amusing misuse of words in a play you’ll never see by a person you don’t need to know about. Examples of malapropisms can be found in the character Ali G’s request, “Let’s talk about a very tattoo subject” (ie: taboo) or, proving fact is funnier than fiction, in Mike Tyson’s genius idiocy: “I might just fade into Bolivian, you know what I mean?” (ie: oblivion).

LARGESSE Yo momma possesses such largesse, she’d give me the hair off her back. Lar-gesse (lar JESS): n. generosity in giving No, this word is not related to hirsute. Someone who displays largesse is always giving stuff to people or to causes. (It can also be spelled without the last E, good news if your hand gets tired toward the end.) Although it doesn’t have to be used this way, there’s often an implied degree of showiness handcuffed to largesse, something Trumpian and flamboyant about the generosity. As in, nobody disputes the value of your gift, buddy, but somehow this gift seems to be more about you than the recipient. Consider the largesse of political lobbyists, who give billions of dollars to political honchos in hopes of cultivating favorable legislation for their many causes. Or take Sean Penn giving his time to help Hurricane Katrina victims, while his publicist just happened to be around to record his noble largesse. Here is a way to remember largesse: Sometimes Shady Selflessness

EGREGIOUS Yo momma is so egregiously stupid, she told me to meet her on the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk. E-gre-gious (i GREE juhs): adj. horrifically terrible, shockingly bad Egregious means the worst of the worst. If you’re an egregious liar, you are the worst kind of liar. New Coke was an egregious marketing mistake. Janet Jackson had an egregious wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl. Michael Jackson showed an egregious lapse in judgment when he dangled his baby over a hotel balcony in Paris. (We could go through the whole Jackson family and effectively demonstrate uses of the word egregious, but let’s move on.) Authur James Frey tangled himself in a web of egregious deceit by claiming his work of fiction, A Million Little Pieces, was a memoir. Mel Gibson’s drunk comments about Judaism were egregiously offensive. And speaking of… Five egregiously misspellings of Hanukkah: Chanukaha, Ghananka, Chunkyka, Honkeykah, Donkykong

PROSTRATE Yo momma’s so ugly, her psychiatrist makes her lie prostrate! Pros-trate (PRAHS trayt): adj. lying face-down and flat; helpless; exhausted; v. to fling oneself down as if in submission; to make helpless; to exhaust physically Picture COPS on TV. Sometimes when they catch shirtless bad guys, they force them face-down on the ground before handcuffing them. That position, pre-cuffing, is a prostrate one, or one of prostration. Sometimes, the criminal will prostrate himself since he knows the cops have guns and pepper spray. There can also be a more figurative meaning to signify that a certain person, group, or situation has been crippled or exhausted: “Legend has it that Led Zeppelin prostrated the staff of pretty much every hotel they stayed in.”