The Official Uppity Handbook

State your name.

We've been trying in our own inimitable way to rebrand our state "Connetiquette", with very limited success — if you were to give yours a new moniker, what would you come up with Mr(s). Smarty Pants?

We got the inspiration for this from a reader who said Connetiquette was good, but she was born and bred in, and liked "Br∞klyn" even better. Ha! If you'd prefer to use a city or a town (since they're in the spirit of the thing), or even a country — "Japanned" comes to mind — then feel free.

So far, we've gotten a lot of Damn-I-wish-I-thought-of-that entries, so we thought we'd share some of the cleverness with you.

Dorothy Smith writes: "Not my idea, but right up your alley. We live in Bellingham, Washington. We are called (no kidding) — Bellinghamsters."

An anonymous email came in with this: "Not many bright people where I live - how about 'Floridumb?'" That's good, but let's change it slightly to "Floriduh?"

From the mysterious "Taxman", who sent in: "Hawaiy'all — preferred by the southern occupants of the Aloha State."

Jon Kimball chimed in with: "Well, of course, there is 'Oregonfishin' and that is what I'm going to do rather than play silly word games."

Michelle List made us chuckle with this: "I come from Babylon, Long Island, NY, and a lot of my former neighbors were 'Babblonandoners.'"

And then there's John Higgins: "I love your TEXIST t-shirt concept (says more as an identifier than Connetiquette—sorry.) But how could you resist the obvious WISCONSINNER for cheese heads? Or ILLANNOYING for that matter?"

Jamie Polichak writes in: "While attending the U of Michigan, I tried to spread the word that the normal referent 'Michiganders' should be for males, while females should be referred to as 'Michigeese'.

Rick Smith sent this beaut in:

"One must not forget us 'Idahoers'. (You can either lay back, or dig in)"

Share on Facebook | Here's my attempt...

Recalcitrance is a terrible thing to waste.

THE OFFICIAL UPPITY HANDBOOK is our attempt at a know-it-all guide to the really important stuff in life, like "How to be the world's worse dad without even trying" and "Three must-read books if you're on death row." Just kidding.

It's totally filled with cerebral practicality and old-school impertinence — we guarantee you will laugh out loud at our smirky debut monograph: Brain surgery... it's not rocket science.

Our Most Popular Articles.

Sailing to ~~Byzantium~~ New York City.

Call me Mr. Halligan.

Pardon my French.

Well-Versed — 3 "Uppity" Poems.

How to tie your tie right.

Seven Bullet Points of Highly-Effective People.

Top This Toponym.

We believe that words can still startle and sparkle, and have created a couple of fun brain brush-ups for you to show us how much you love them too.

The first challenge is to come up with a contemporary word derived from a place, such as Shanghai (abduct by force, from Shanghai, China), Paisley (design, from Paisley, Scotland) or Timbuktu (metaphor for a distant land, from Timbuktu, city on the Niger River in Mali), along with a definition. We're looking for originality and humor.

Our attempt:

Chicago — to railroad (someone) INTO office.

Read all the excellent entries...

State (your name).

While we're thinking about it, this contest is kind of topical too. We're trying to rebrand our state "Connetiquette" — with success, of sorts. If you were to give yours a new name, what would you come up with?

Check out the best of the cleverest here.

Brain Up!

Why don't you test your mental mettle on some of the other clever trivia(l) games we have at Brain Up! — including the perennial favorite hair-puller "Einstein's Fish"?

Quick. Fun. Canny.

The ONE UP! CUP 2012 is a yearlong contest (with prizes every month) we invented to see who has the most cerebellum soup in the bowl, so-to-speak. Check out the challenge for October.

Hey, wiseacres, sign up now!

From time to time we send out a newsletter that contains the latest goings-on, some argy-bargy from the cheap seats, as well as first-dibs on specials and discounts. It's really worth it to subscribe, and we promise not to share your name, or spam you to death with irrelevant crap.

Home | About Us | FAQ | Contact | Privacy/Return Policy