Sunday, August 2, 2009

"Catastrophe" Contest Winner

It's been a few months since I announced my contest for the best grammatically opposite word for "catastrophe." Since then I've had to sort through 168 replies from readers. For my choice of the winner, I'm gonna fudge on my original criteria:

First, "catastrophe" is rooted in two Greek words: "kata" meaning "down" and "strephein" meaning "to turn." Thus "cata" in "catastrophe" doesn't directly mean "evil" or "disaster," but it can be said it indirectly means that. So to let the sought-after opposite word be a clean, crisp opposite-LOOKING and opposite-SOUNDING word, I've chosen a word submitted by a certain reader. The GRAMMATICALLY best word was submitted by Jennifer B.---bless her heart. But I choose as the winner the word, "benestrophe." "Bene," of course, is rooted in the Latin and means "good." So a benestrophe would be a major-scale happening of good or happiness---something like, say, the Cleveland Indians winning the pennant, or Madonna or Britney Spears suddenly retiring, or Sarah Palin being swallowed by a whale, or blond-hair dye becoming permanently unavailable. Anyway, "benestrophe" was submitted by one Chris Monju. I don't think I know Chris Monju---probably a misspelling of his last name; probably a yankee; probably creates video grames for a living; probably reads an encylopedia once a week; probably likes rodeos and clowns. Well, congratulations, Chris Monju, whoever and wherever you are! If you play your cards right, your check can soon be in the mail!

-Old Gargoyle

4 comments:

Chris said...

Well, I'll be!

Old Gargoyle said...

Well said!

Jennifer said...

Tu triche!

Jennifer

Old Gargoyle said...

Hee hee!