Akademik

(juh.raf.EE.tee)

n.

Graffiti painted in a very high spot.

Spray paint should become a controlled substance to stop the spread of graffiti and its new, high-altitude cousin "giraffiti,'' says city Coun. Helen Hughes.

At city council meeting Thursday, Hughes asked municipal bureaucrats to work investigating how spray paint could be regulated and controlled.

-BODY- She said regulations might include the need to have a permit to buy spray paint, or a limit on the number of cans sold at a time, or requirements to store the spray paint behind a counter.

To make any regulations effective, they would have to be enacted across the entire Capital regional district, she said.

Hughes also noted there is also a new phenomena called giraffiti.

It's presumably a combination of the words graffiti and giraffe because Hughes said it involves spray painting a picture or graffiti signature, called a tag, as high as possible off the ground.

— Richard Watts, "Make spray paint a controlled substance to stop graffiti: Victoria councillor," The Canadian Press, January 4, 2001

Report from week 278:

in which you were asked to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing a letter, and supply a new definition. ...

First Runner-Up: Giraffiti: vandalism spray-painted very, very high, such as the famous "Surrender Dorothy" on the Beltway overpass. (Robin D. Grove, Arlington)

— "The Style Invitational," The Washington Post, August 2, 1998