Theming "Vegetarian"

Part two in a series? Maybe, if anyone else enjoys this!

Awhile back, I tinkered with the word “sailor” and the various ways that word could be explored from a wordplay perspective. Thought I’d try another word, so I used a random-word generator and came up with “vegetarian.”

Definitions: A vegetarian is a person or animal that doesn’t eat meat—or in its adjective form, they’re vegetarian. But we’re learning that few if any animal species are “pure” vegetarian. A deer will eat a dead bird if it finds one—in the wild, nutrients are nutrients. Still, many deer go their whole lives without eating meat, and that’s close enough to qualify. So you don’t need any new reasons to be upset about Bambi.

As an adjective, vegetarian also means “meatless.” When it’s modifying certain foods that normally have meat in them, these foods contain meat substitutes, like a vegetarian burger. It’s not a burger that’s never eaten meat itself!

With people, vegetarian takes certain modifiers like ovo-lacto, meaning “does eat eggs and dairy.” Pescatarian means “vegetarian except for fish.” Flexitarian means vegetarian but not too strict about it, whereas vegan—contained in the edges of vegetarian—is stricter. And just as vegans are harder in their rules, eschewing all products that come from animals, the g in vegan is a hard g as opposed to the soft g in vegetarian.

There are further variations like fruitarianism, climatarianism, and breatharianism. Breatharianism—trying to subsist just on oxygen—is either anorexia by another name or one of the stupidest ways to die one could even imagine.

The funniest synonym for vegetarian is vego…according to OneLook, and I tend to agree. (It’s not widely known, so give context when you use it.)

All these variations might inspire you to invent your own, just as Calvin does in the Calvin and Hobbes strip below.

Anagrams: Vegetarian has one one-word anagram, renavigate. A more permissive vegetarian might make a vegan irate. Most vegetarians eat vinegar. The best cryptic clue I’ve seen for VEGETARIAN is “Eater ’aving bananas (or nuts?)”

Logo design: The symbol below can be read as both a “v” and a plant, and it sometimes indicated vegetarian- or vegan-friendly restaurants or menu items.

As vegans have discussed, its presentation can be a double-edged sword. The symbol captures the careful eater’s interest, but it’s not clear without more context whether it means vegetarian or vegan.

Cipher: With two repeating letters, vegetarian has an unusual but not unique pattern. Similarly patterned words include ridiculous, monolithic, uninvested, chthonians, cofounding, parasitoid, paganistic, and apoplexies.

Rhymes: Inapt rhymes for vegetarian include carrion and Sagittarian.

Lipogram: Here’s a short composition using the letters in vegetarian:

Eating grain terrine entrée, tartar tater, agrarian vinaigrette, ’n’ green agar; averting egg.

I promise I didn’t create it with generative AI.

One of the longest “dictionary phrases” you can get with these letters is negative integer.

Quotes:

In his song “Vegetarian,” Tommy Cash sang, “I don’t want no beef, I’m a vegetarian.” Juice WRLD did a similar joke in his “Vegetarians (Praying to God).” In “Loyal,” Chris Brown went in another direction: “Okay, let's talk about this ice that I'm carryin’, All these karats like I'm a f***in’ vegetarian.”

Next: Contradictory words of wisdom: foolish or wise?