contrivoversy
n.— «Spring rumor had it that the Red Sox might not hand out the championship rings at the opener, because they didn’t want to offend the Yankees. Red Sox Nation responded. The Yankees would hand out the rings! They wouldn’t care about showing up an opponent! The Sox were ruining summers before the snow had melted off the ground! I was one of many who couldn’t understand just why it was even a story. I even coined a term for it…contrivoversy, or “contrived controversy.”» —“Red Sox Nation is ready to savor the moment” by Jon Couture Standard-Times (New Bedford, Mass.) Apr. 10, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In Cockney rhyming slang, apples and pears is a synonym for “stairs,” and dustbin lids means kids. Plus, sniglets are clever coinages for things we don’t already have words for. Any guesses what incogsneeto means? It’s the...
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...