Hey kids! There’s a new feature in town here at The Productive Cough, brought to you in part by ME and Feldman. It’s called Word of the Week! What happens is that Feldman and I will make up a word and then YOU will have a week to submit definitions. Any time you submit a definition, I’ll stick it up on the right hand column, in between Recent Posts and the pictures of the dogs I like to tell myself you’re all adopting. It will be an exercise in nonsense- I hope you’ll join us!

Anyway, onto the important stuff! This week’s word is…

Captilechter (KAP-til-ekt-tur) noun

Got that? Submit something, would you? Just shoot me an email at liz@theproductivecough.com
There might even be a wacky, homespun prize in it for you… BONUS POINTS FOR USING IT IN A SENTENCE!

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Here are this week’s entries:

David Malloy: A European bakery measurement roughly equivalent to the American centimeter.

Jody Feder: A device used to feed caterpillars to baby birds who have lost their parents. When I went to the museum, I saw the scientist feeding a baby bird with a captilechter.

Darren Willner: A rubbery discolored sloth-like insect usually found in the out reaches of the Nigerian jungle which leaves a trail of mucus and puss behind it as it travels. The mess that Mark leaves behind him while eating and slowly walking through the mall reminds one of a capilechter making its way through the forest.

Chris Bulock: A small, salty sore that is the result of eating way too many Fritos brand corn chips. First, the jagged edge of a chip creates a tear in the tender flesh of the mouth, and the ensuing cut is eaten away by the obscene amount of salt coating the following chips. I was watching a Mythbusters marathon and chowin’ down on a family size bag of Fritos, so now I’ve got three captilechters.

Steve Cole: What happens when the Capt. has the only vote in electing Sotomayor to Supreme Court.

Thea Stutsman: A machine that reverses death by putting decapitated heads back onto the body; used poorly and not enough in the French Revolution when those crazy Frenchies realized that oh shit, they may have just killed the wrong guy.

Jeff Stein: Intricate machine presided over by the First Parrot of a given pirate ship meant to settle disputes in any chaotic, post-mutiny situation. “What’s that you say? Captain O’Malley has been thrown overboard along with the empty bottles of rum? Guess it’s time for Polly to bust out the ol’ Captilechter! Arr!” (BONUS) Etymology: English; first used in the late 1500s as “Capt-elector;” spelling transitioned to “Captilechter” during the subsequent hundred years, as chronicled by various trade documents now on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

Brian McGrane: An individual animal who chooses to raise the young of another species as his or her own. The she-wolf did not hesitate to become Sally’s captilechter, and she instructed the orphaned pioneer girl in the feral arts by example and encouraging snout rubbing (when Sally caught her prey).

Gene Taylor, World-Famous Pianist: A recently-invented, soon-to-be unveiled item of computer software which recognizes where capitalization is needed when typing documents on a computer. It recognizes sentence beginnings, proper nouns and other probable capitalization points and has been tested to be 97.6% accurate. “Sorry for the poor writing, but I haven’t installed a captilechter on my Mac yet.”

Christy Ciniglio: The remaining segment of spine left protruding from the neck after the removal of one’s head. “My captilechter hurts.”

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