Word Fugitives

When the February Atlantic invited readers to come up with two word fugitives, or terms that other readers sought, hundreds responded. One of the wanted words was a masculine counterpart to hysteria. If each suggestion that arrived counted as a vote, the winner by far would have been testeria, submitted by more than seventy people.

A number of histeria s, hersteria s, and malestrom s came in as well. Nancy Strauss, of Excelsior, Minnesota, suggested malefeasance ; Mort Somer, of Ogden, Utah, suggested manic expressive ; and two votes were cast in favor of male-pattern badness. Many people, though, protested that English already contains the necessary term. Some wanted to turn malevolence or mania to the purpose at hand (among them Tom Doyle, of Bristol, Connecticut, who pointed out that the plural of mania in this sense should be menia ). A few, including Sam Abrams, of Rochester, New York, ...