A Few Shabby Ideas

Heard a podcast this morning where someone was happily mispronouncing his words. His pearl for the day was shabotage.

I was entranced, trying to think of the correct definition:
(a) when you go for the shabby chic look and totally screw it up,
(b) the act of a malicious interior designer who screws up your home's decor and insists that it's the latest style;
(c) when you dress sloppily for a date with someone you really don't want to see again.

A related word might be shaboteur -- a shabbiness perpetrator, or a shabby person who's not quite expert at shabotage yet (shabby + amateur).

And then there are:

• reluctant rulers who shabdicate
• the '70s Swedish band now gone to seed, Shabba
• trying to tighten up flabby shabdominal muscles
• college students who pack up their tattered jeans and tees and head to Europe for a few weeks shabroad
• trying to practice shabstinence and quit thinking of things like this
• but I can't help it -- I'm a shabstract thinker
• (Oh, the vocabulary shabuse)

(It's this kind of thinking that keeps me dreamily staring at my monitor instead of working.)