Wasband

After reading here about the guy who calls his wife’s ex her ‘wasband,’ Rosemary Wolohan confides that she refers to her two exes as ‘hasbeends.’

The bride’s aunt dances with her ex-husband — he’s called a ‘wasband’ — on the hay-strewn ‘dance floor’ in front of the barn.

El Camino Real Elementary School librarian Cindy Mirallegro wants to put a word in the dictionary. She thought it was her own word when she and her friend were talking and she invented it, but it turns out a search of the Internet showed that several other people have used it before. But, that doesn't matter to College Park resident Mirallegro, she still wants to get it listed in Webster's dictionary.

"Has anyone seen her wasband?" said the headline in the Irvine World News. It wasn't a typo. The story referred to librarian Cindy Mirallegro's campaign to win acceptance for "wasband" as a word meaning ex-husband. " 'Ex' just sounds so harsh," said Mirallegro, who has a wasband herself. She sent the Irvine article to Merriam-Webster, which said the word could find "its way into our dictionaries" if "you and other proponents of the word continue to use it in speech and correspondence." Mirallegro said she and her friends are keeping an eye out for "wasband" mentions -- it dates back at least as far as a 1990 Herb Caen column.

"Wasband" didn't make it this year into Webster's New World College Dictionary update. That was the official word this week from Mike Agnes, Wiley Publishing's dictionary editor who oversees all new editions and updates of the dictionary.