The Best Word in the Whole Wide World

I'm really very fond of the "Battle Royale" methodology as a tool for selecting the best among a set of many things. It's quite simple.

1. Arbitrarily pick any two items from the set.
2. Choose the best of the two, the reigning champion, and toss the loser.
3. Arbitrarily pick a new item, the challenger.
4. Compare the reigning champion to the challenger, choose the best of the two, and toss the loser.
5. Repeat until there are no more challengers. What you're left with is the best.

We're all familiar with this process. It shows up all the time in that thing you people call "sports". But I like the idea of applying the "Battle Royale" to anything.

I was first introduced to the generalized form by our dear friend Herr Professor M (also known as the "King of the Categorical Imperative" or the "Ayatollah of Ethics-ola" though his closest friends usually just call him the "Kant-meister") who used it for selecting videos at the store. In those pre-Netflixian days, I was myself desperately prone to wasting countless hours in the video store lost in an indecisive tizzy, and I took his message to heart.

Of course we've used the "BR-technique" before here at Slimbolala with our thwarted attempt to determine the Best Thing in the Whole Wide World. (Who can forget the legendary Carol Channing vs. Turkey Pot Pie debates?) But perhaps our ambitions were too grand. (Fly not so close to the sun, O Slimbo! Your wings will fail you!*) Perhaps we tried too hard.

So let's tackle something simpler, something nice and easy. How about let's just figure out the Best Word in the Whole Wide World. As always, there are absolutely no rules or guidelines—other than, um, all those rules and guidelines at the top of this post with all the little numbers—that way, it crashes quicker and burns brighter. (Ooh, pretty!) So let's get started—me first. (It's my blog. Git yer own damn blog.) I'm going with:

na·bob
n.

1. (Historical) A Muslim official or governor under the Mogul empire.
2. A very wealthy or influential person.

Your turn. Top that.

* This is my second lame Daedalus reference in recent memory. What's up with that?**

** This is my umpteenth lame "What's up with that?" reference in recent memory. What's up with that?