doctors

douglas adams
The major problem with the medical profession in the most advanced sectors of the galaxy had to tackle after cures had been found for all major diseases, and instant repair systems had been found for all physical injuries and disablements except some of the more advanced forms of death, was that of employment.

Planets full of bronzed healthy clean limbed individuals merrily prancing through their lives meant that the only doctors still in business were the psychiatrists, simply because no one had discovered a cure for the Universe as a whole -- or rather the only one that did exist had been abolished by the medical doctors.

Then it was noticed that like most forms of medical treatment, total cures had a lot of unpleasant side effects. Boredom, listlessness, lack of... well anything very much, and with these conditions came the realization that nothing turned, say, a slightly talented musician into a towering genius faster than the problem of encroaching deafness, and nothing turned a perfectly healthy individual into a great politician or military leader better than irreversible brain damage.

Suddenly, everything changed. Previous best selling books such as How I Survived an Hour with a Sprained Finger were swept away in a flood of titles such as How I Scaled the North Face of the Megapurna with a Perfectly Healthy Finger But Everything Else Sprained, Broken or Bitten Off By a Pack of Mad Yaks.

And so doctors were back in business recreating all the diseases and injuries they had abolished in popular easy to use forms. Thus, given the right and instantly available types of disability even something as simple as turning of the 3-D TV could become a major chanllenge, and when all the programmes on all the channels actually were made by actors with cleft pallettes speaking lines by dyslexic writers filmed by blind cameramen instead of merely seeming like that, it somehow made the whole thing more worthwhile.

person-first

jason
having the adjective after the noun in nominal form joined by 'with', such as 'a person with autism' (rather than 'an autistic' or 'an autistic person'), 'a person with bisexuality' (instead of 'a bisexual' or 'a bisexual person'), or 'the person with presidency' (instead of 'the president' or 'the presidential person')

authority

trustycoffeemug
(n.) the ability to compel one to obey commands

the general food chain of authority begins with god, standing above popes, emperors, royalty and presidents, who in turn stand above important officials, who are above unimportant officials, and thence scary looking men in suits, scary looking men in military uniform, mayors, bureaucrats, police officers, school principals, and, at the bottom tier, landlords, employers, and the clergy.

and then there's you maggots

dove

trustycoffeemug
(n.) a painfully stupid bird prone to screeching, violent spasms and getting itself killed flailing against panes of glass. regarded as a symbol of peace, presumably because they're so fragile and have trouble defending themselves

noumenon

the devils dictionary
That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning — which is a phenomenon. Nevertheless, the discovery and exposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls "the endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought." Hurrah (therefore) for the noumenon!

vaccine

trustycoffeemug
(n.) a piece of pathogenic virus, which through exposure can bolster the immune system of a person and thus bestow them with immune defenses against that virus. objected to by those who believe that nothing that good for you can possibly come without a catch, and are subsequently confused about why they always seem to be getting these rare diseases

inflation

douglas adams
The phenomenon by which the value of currency goes down, as if it were being simultaneously attacked by the common cold and a horde of ferocious wildebeests. A process that makes your money worth less and less, until eventually it's worth about as much as the promise of a pension from a galactic government."

rich

the devils dictionary
Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless. That is the view that prevails in the underworld, where the Brotherhood of Man finds its most logical development and candid advocacy. To denizens of the midworld the word means good and wise.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

etymology of clowns

trustycoffeemug
the word clown is believed to come from the low german cloyne, which refers to a boorish person of unrefined manners; it is possible, although less likely, that this may derive even further from the latin term colonus, meaning one who is a colonist (implicitly a rural and provincial type).

such biting contempt for the intelligence of the lower classes is surprisingly common in the english language; the word "boor" probably derives from the same source as the dutch "boer" (farmer), the term "villain" similarly may derive from a term for a rural laborer (i.e., one who worked the fields on a villa), and so on. even in modern england, the term "common," as in "commoner," can be seen as a mild insult casting aspersions on one's taste.

that's really it. sorry, i made this page by accident. mixed up the terms etymology and taxonomy. interesting, tho.

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