• Houseketeer •
Pronunciation: hæws-kê-teer • Hear it!Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: A member of the US House of Representatives who only plays around, the correlate of a Seemator, a Senator who seems to be doing stuff he isn't really doing.
Notes: Today's Good Word has no derivational relatives but you may use it as a verb as is, e.g. to houseketeer rather than do the job. Houseketeering, then, is the noun from this verb and the adjective, as the House Subcommittee on Houseketeering or the Houseketeering Subcommittee. Seemator has an adjective, Seematorial and an adverb Seematorially. Both words are capitalized, though I am not sure why.
In Play: Today's Good Word has a rather narrow range of reference: "Over the past two decades the Houseketeers in Washington have ignored their regulatory function and allowed one disaster after another to visit the US." Of course, the Seemators contributed their fair share. Still, there is no reason why we cannot extend the range of this Good Word metaphorically: "Like some freshman Houseketeer, Ben de Helenbeque has let his family's financial situation deteriorate drastically."
Word History: Today's Good Word was created by analogy with Mouseketeer, a member of the Mickey Mouse Club, a kids TV show produced by the Disney Corporation back in the 1950s. Since the kids on this show only fooled around, Mouseketeer makes the perfect analogy for the US Congress of the past 20 years. (Today we thank Dr. April Phule, no Houseketeer herself but Professor of Foolishness at Didweefuhl U., for submitting this very Good Word for April Fool's Day, the day of practical jokes—like this one—in the US. Well, yesterday was Easter, so we had to wait a day for this one.)
