Muleociation

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Thursday, October 16, 2003, at 03:35 PM, Yerkes, Susan wrote,
replying to john mcchesney-young's forwarding of a query about
"muleociation" in a high school student's writing:

> Sorry, but is this a joke?

there is the "heaveno" for "hello" business, so someone involved could
have meant this sort of seriously.  but it looks like a jocular coining
to me; i hear adolescent giggling.  of course, once coined, a word can
spread in many ways, and its origins can be lost.

> From a non-technical point of view, seems apparent to me that the
> student is
> using the word "mule" as a questionably punny
> substitute for the word "ass" which still is enough to raise some
> folks'
> hackles (believe me, some publications still get worked up about this
> sort
> of thing), so I gather he or she is simply carrying the no-ass dictum
> to
> extremes.

i think the person who thought this up should be mulemuleinated.

from the teacher:

> I am at a loss, because I can find no muleociation
> between this word and any Latin or Greek roots.
> Perhaps this just sprung full-grown from my student's
> head.

well, from *some* body part.

john:

> Searches for assorted forms of the word ("muleociate," "muleociated,"
> etc.) at the search engine Dogpile turn up just a handful of uses in
> three
> places: a discussion forum for players of the Xbox game system, and a
> couple
> of others for developers of the open source version of Netscape's
> browser,
> Mozilla.
>
> Here are two examples where it apparently means "association":
>
> http://forum.teamxbox.com/
> showthread.php?s=fe88131c6c8d084291e2bef1061dad71&
> threadid=201892&highlight=muleociation
>
> Also on Ubi-Soft's on site the Xbox logo is nowhere to be found in
> muleociation with Far Cry.
>
> [and]
>
> http://www.mozdev.org/mailarchives/reviewers/2002-December/000890.html
>
> \"The first thing you have to do to build a custom view is instantiate
> your
> tree and then muleociate a view object with it, commonly known as a
> view.
>
> (end quote)
>
> Teoma also reports a use at the Teambox.com domain in this phrase,
> "Proud
> member of the Correct Grammar muleociation," but it appears to be a
> signature file which is no longer in use.

if you *really* want to pursue the matter, you could ask the writers of
these passages where they got the word and what they think they were
conveying by using it.  of course, they might not be willing to give
you any muleistance.

arnold