Sunday, April 6, 2008

Dictionary Definition



buf*fis
(be'-fis)
n.

1. A word made up by 4-year-old Mitchell in a knock-knock joke.
i.e. "Knock knock. Who's there? Buffis. Buffis who? Buffis you! (Don't ask, we still don't know.)

2. A day in which a birthday is celebrated if said birthday falls on a day in which it cannot be celebrated properly.
i.e. We celebrated Matt's Buffis Day on Saturday.

[Old English buffase]

8 comments:

sandi said...

That is funny! I already miss you guys so much!

Matthew English said...

So...I searched the Oxford English Dictionary for the word Buffis...this was the closest I could come and in a strange way it makes sense.

Buffo: noun and adjective

[a. It. buffo adj., comical, burlesque: see BUFFOON.]

A. n. A comic actor, a singer in a comic opera. B. as adj. Belonging to or characteristic of a buffo; comic, burlesque.

1764 FOOTE Patron I. i, A rank impostor, the bufo of an illiberal mercenary tribe.

1789 MRS. PIOZZI Journ. France I. 177 They..sung a thousand buffo songs.

Even Lord Byron...
1821 BYRON Juan IV. lxxxi, The buffo of the party.

1850 L. HUNT Autobiog. ii. (1860) 42 Every burlesque or buffo song, of any pretension, was pretty sure to be Italian.

1851 KINGSLEY Yeast xiii. 237 Genial earnest buffo humour here and there.

I know...way too far, but maybe the word for buffis and buffoon have a common root here.

I guess all of this makes me the "buffo" for 1. missing my birthday for a conference in Boise and 2. For loving "buffis day" and spending a portion of it at the D.I.

Muriel said...

Aren't you supposed to be grading papers or something?

Alien Master said...

I think I will just start using that word though. So when I see Ian or Miya doing something bizzaro I can just say, stop being a Buffis!

Alien Master said...

Though now thinking about it, he may have just created a new word by combining Buffoon and Doofus and came up with Buffis. Regardless, new words are great.

apyknowzitall said...

Like moobs???

Alien Master said...

as David Kidd would say.... STHU!

Unknown said...

I think I'm going to start celebrating my Buffis Day at least once a week, because, really, can you ever celebrate a birthday properly in just one day???