A WORD, PLEASE:Simpsons make a mark on lingo

The stock market is going bonkers, Kim Jong-Il still has a job and Rupert Murdoch is now the king of all media (sorry, Howard Stern, but potty jokes bouncing off a satellite just don’t cut it anymore).

And I’m embarrassed to report that, to me, one current event totally eclipses these. “The Simpsons Movie” is out.

I’m a longtime Simpsons fan (root word of “fanatic” for all you etymology and/or psychology buffs), but for years I dreaded the day when a “Simpsons” movie would hit the big screen. I was sure it would come off as a shameful attempt to cash in, ultimately ushering in the death of the TV series. Of course, I was once sure that Walter “Fritz” Mondale would be leader of the free world, so that should sum up my clairvoyant abilities.

Obviously I was wrong. The movie is funny — much funnier than any Simpsons episode in recent memory — and it’s great fun to laugh with a roomful of people instead of alone in soiled bunny slippers like a crazy person. So in honor of “The Simpsons’” creative success, I’ll dedicate the rest of this language column to the vocabulary and grammar wisdom of “The Simpsons.”

People unfamiliar with the show don’t realize that it’s very word-savvy. The writers frequently demonstrate a strong grasp of grammar as well as the kind of vocabulary that comes only from a true love of words.

The most famous example is a word used by Mr. Burns in the famed “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” two-part episode from 1995.

In it, Burns reports that he had attempted to take candy from a baby. He had tried it before, he said, but his nagging assistant, Mr. Smithers, had stood in his way. Burns’ second attempt was different.

“With Smithers out of the picture I was free to wallow in my own crapulence,” he said.

I hadn’t heard the word before and, outside of “Simpsons” discussions, I haven’t heard it since.

But now I know that “crapulence” means, according to “Webster’s,” “sickness caused by excess in drinking or eating” or “gross intemperance, esp. in drinking.”

What a useful and wonderful word (especially for someone who spent their teenage years the way I did). But where the educational and correctional system let me down, the “Simpsons” stepped in.

Here are two other fun “Simpsons” vocabulary words: “hoary” and “risible.” Both these words have been used on the show by Sideshow Bob — a clownish figure played by Kelsey Grammer and made all the funnier by his articulateness and intelligence.

“Hoary,” according to “Webster’s,” means “white, gray, or grayish-white”; “having white or gray hair due to age”; or “very old; ancient.” Bob used this word to describe one of Bart’s ploys to foil him. (At least, I think he was saying “hoary.” Either way, I got to brush up on a good word.)

“Risible” is one I probably should have known, but didn’t. Sideshow Bob uses it as a synonym for “funny” when he tells Krusty the Clown, “I was the risible one in our dyad.”

And, indeed, it is a synonym for “funny,” and some other things. According to “Webster’s,” it means “able or inclined to laugh,” “of or connected with laughter” and, lastly, “causing laughter; laughable; funny; amusing.”

For a final example, I’ll focus on grammar instead of vocabulary.

I may be alone in this one, but I remain impressed that, in an episode in which a school bus lands in the ocean, Bart says, “I should have just swum for it.”

In my experience, most people would say swam. Though “swum” is, indeed, the preferred past participle.

Of course, this same experience tells me we shouldn’t rule out Fritz in 2008. So take that for what it’s worth.