Verboticism: Foma

'Yeah, I'm in heaven now.'

DEFINITION: n. A harmless untruth, intended to comfort simple souls. v. To use a little bit a fiction to smooth over the perplexities and complexities of life.

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Foma

Created by: vonnegut

Pronunciation: fo-ma

Sentence: Nothing in this book is true. "Live by the foma* that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy." The Books of Bokonon. I: 5

Etymology: Created by Kurt Vonnegut for Cat's Cradle, published in 1963.

Points: 539

Comments: Foma

Alchemist - 2007-04-16: 06:51:00
foma - accept no substitutes.

rikboyee - 2007-04-16: 09:24:00
we can't go through the whole week respelling Vonneguts words....or can we?

jedijawa - 2007-04-16: 12:54:00
It's the best way to win the prize.... :-)

Bulletchewer - 2007-04-16: 15:11:00
What's the singular? And should I have heard of Vonnegut? Has he been on TV? Recently? Bliss.

wordmeister - 2007-04-16: 15:22:00
The singular form is "fomum", like phenomena (plural) and phenomenum (signular). Comes from Latin. Did you study Latin in highschool? I did, and I'm still trying to get over it.

Bulletchewer - 2007-04-16: 16:14:00
It's all Greek to me!

rikboyee - 2007-04-16: 17:44:00
you can even go into the news/blog section and it will tell you which word this definition comes from.... i honestly feel that using Vonneguts word taints the wampeter of our humble karass