Just for fun

[Ken Greenwald]

That thing two people perform on the sidewalk when they are approaching each other face on and can't figure out whether to pass on the right or on the left.

the vis-à-vis pas de deux
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Ken – March 8, 2009

[Phil White]

That thing two people perform on the sidewalk when they are approaching each other face on and can't figure out whether to pass on the right or on the left.

grande valse polie
urban shuffle

[Shelley]

Hi. Well, after all that, I've been informed there is already a term for this: the pedestrian shuffle. Your "urban shuffle" is much cleaner, in my opinion, Phil White, but there you are.
Last Saturday was the first warm evening of the season in New York town, and friends and I were having a hell of time trying to negotiate a path through tens of thousands of tourists and pleasure-seekers in Times Square. Friend Dave (or husband Ric -- not sure who said it first) observed that we were stuck in "rumper-to-rumper traffic".

[Phil White]

Nice!

Here's another.
The compulsive need to check that your mobile phone has not magically switched itself to silent when you are anticipating a call or a text message.

[Shelley]

Nophonobia.

Mobilus interruptus.

[Ken Greenwald]

The compulsive need to check that your mobile phone has not magically switched itself to silent when you are anticipating a call or a text message..

Phil, Sounds to me like a case of OMD [Obsesssive-Missive Disorder]!
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Ken – March 10, 2009

[Erik_Kowal]

Doing the muffle shuffle.

Ignoraphobia.

Aphonophobia.

Sneakypeekia.

[Phil White]

Phonetic

[Shelley]

What about getting on an elevator and pressing a button when it obviously has already been pressed?

[Erik_Kowal]

I suggest that from now on we number the challenges and responses to make it easy to know which ones belong together:

1) The item of clothing that lurks in the bottom of the dirty linen basket and never gets washed.

2) That thing two people perform on the sidewalk when they are approaching each other face on and can't figure out whether to pass on the right or on the left.

3) The compulsive need to check that your mobile phone has not magically switched itself to silent when you are anticipating a call or a text message.

4) Getting on an elevator and pressing a button when it obviously has already been pressed.

So that things stay manageable going forward, I've decided to create a new forum in the 'Beyond Words' area called Word Games and Challenges where anyone can set a challenge or invite other Wordwizard members to take part in a word-related game of some kind. (I've moved this thread there too.)

That way we can give each challenge or game its own thread, and it will be far simpler to keep track of new responses to old challenges.

If you want to comment on this arrangement, or if you're having technical problems using the new forum, please post your contributions in the Comments and Suggestions on the Site forum.

[Erik_Kowal]

4) Getting pushy.

4) Lift rage / elevator rage.

4) Getting finger-happy.

[Shelley]

(4) Pressing busyness

[Ken Greenwald]

4) In the psychiatric dodge it is known as ELEVATED REPRESSION.
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Ken – March 12, 2009

[Phil White]

4) A severe depression, not lifting later

[Phil White]

Here is a new one:

The sudden access of fear on discovering that one has an entirely harmless habit that may indicate one is suffering from OCD. Such habits are impossible to break, and any attempt to do so reinforces one's fear that it might really be OCD.

An example may be always putting on one's right sock before once left sock. To do this in any other sequence appears to be against the natural order of things. (Try that one at home, folks.)