Apologies for Gene Gunston

[Dr. Goodword]

We would like to apologize for letting Gene Gunston into the Alpha Agora and the discomfort he caused. He is gone.

Every day about 100 attempts are made to register for the Alpha Agora. About 5-10 a month are legitimate. The rest are spammers trying to get in to peddle their smut and other tawdry wares.

To filter out the undesirables, we have to check the email addresses, home pages (if any is listed), even the usernames. We search the Web for users who have signed up at dozen other discussion groups the same day and have made no contributions. They are lying in wait for the moment to insert their ads. It is a complicated and time-consuming process but worth it to keep our site functioning.

We have done a pretty good job, I think. Gunston, however, is not a spammer, just a snarky little smellfungus cowering in the guise of a cockalorum. There is not much we can do short of banning any further memberships to exclude his likes. However, as soon as we hear from the rest of you that we have such a member, we can expel them and remove their comments, as we have done in this case.

[Bailey]

just a snarky little smellfungus cowering in the guise of a cockalorum.

is right. You nailed him Doctor GoodWord!

mb

[sluggo]

What'd I miss? What'd I miss??
-never mind...

So does this mean the WotD is Smellfungus?

[Stargzer]

A potty-mouth from Down Under. Even posted a picture as his avatar. In your neck of the woods, he'd've given Poor White Trash a bad name.

[Bailey]

Do a search for smellfungus, but first think abouit what it might mean. Look at the word both in context and as a portmanteau word.

mark smells-no-fungus Bailey

[sluggo]

Do a search for smellfungus, but first think abouit what it might mean. Look at the word both in context and as a portmanteau word.

mark smells-no-fungus Bailey

Yeah, obviously. I was more interested in the etymology, or whether Doc made it up, plus would like to see his 'In Play' section in WotD.

Larry, thanks for info but I think you're just showing off perfect spelling of he'd've . Touché!

[Bailey]

ok, I did the search for you, here is Dr. GoodWord's explanation:
smellfungus

mark glad-to-oblidge Bailey

[Stargzer]

...
Larry, thanks for info but I think you're just showing off perfect spelling of he'd've . Touché!

I think the apostrophe is one of English's greatest strengths!

Then again, there's the parentheses, both left and right. Many years ago James Kilpatrick wrote a great column on the virtues of partentheses, nesting parenthetical thoughts until the end of the column ended up with what seemed like more than a dozen right-parentheses to close off all the opened left-parentheses nested within one another. Even I could not begin to duplicate that feat, but I wish I saved that column.