War Of The Words 2010: Percolate FTW!

Satirist and comedian (and Revolving Floor contributor) Rich Zeroth is gearing up his annual War Of The Words tournament. Basically, a bunch of words compete against each other in a bracketed tournament, and fans bet on the results.  Updates will appear on the Facebook fan page, and you can sign up at Bracketmaker. It’s free to play, but the fan with the most accurate prediction wins $100.

This year, I’m betting on “percolate” to go all the way. “Unitard” is the favorite, but I’m betting on that nearly-useless word to get eliminated in the first round. It’s funny, sure, but only in an archaic, pathetic way. Bathos does not a champion make, my friends. “Placebo” is a dark horse word, and I’m betting that it will make some gains, but ultimately it won’t have the grit needed to follow through. “Percolate” is a solid word, a happy word, an easy word to like. It calls to mind caffeine, always good in an athletic competition, and it suggests a constant readiness, an alertness, which is really going to come in handy, especially against words like “misnomer.” I saw misnomer at spring training, and I’ll just say this: it’s sneaky. You can never really be sure whether or not you’re even rooting for it.

And yeah, sure, we’ve got the crowd-pleasers, “titillate” and “mongrel,” both of whom you just know are only here so that they can get product endorsements and end up on reality TV.  And then there’s “buillon,” a hall-of-famer to be sure, but how long ago was that? Hang it up, buillon. You’ve had your time in the sun, and you’ve made your place in history. Don’t embarrass yourself.