These days, we hear and read a lot about battalions of government workers getting fired.
The meaning of “fired” (“to discharge someone from a job”) is an extension of applying fire to
gunpowder or burning down someone’s house.

“Fired” is such a mind-powdering and soul-searing word. What we need are softer, more
clever verbs with which to administer the final blow to defenseless jobholders.
If clergymen are defrocked and lawyers are disbarred, then alcoholics are delivered,
hairdressers are distressed, and pornographers are deluded.

Employing the de- and dis- prefixes, I offer 15 of my own verbs for getting rid of
members of other professions:

Bankers are distrusted and disinterested.

• Brides are disengaged and dismissed.
• Cowboys are debunked, deranged, and decaffeinated.
• Elks Clubbers are dislodged and dismembered.
• Judges are disrobed, dishonored, disappointed, and defined.
• Magicians are dispelled and disillusioned.
• Mathematicians are deciphered, disfigured, discounted, and dissolved.
• Plastic card users are discredited and discharged.
• Preachers are demoralized, decreed, distracted, and dissected.
• Prospectors are declaimed and disclaimed.
• Songwriters are denoted and decomposed.
• Tailors are depressed, depleted, and dispatched.
• Teachers are declassified, detested, and degraded.
• Tennis players are deduced, disadvantaged, deserved, and defaulted.
• Train engineers are derailed and distracted.

Now that you see how delightful and discriminating this game is, try fashioning your own de-
“and dis- verbs to describe the dismissal of each of the following people. Then compare your
creations with the answers that follow:

1. Baseball players are _____.
   2. Bigots are _____.
   3. Conductors are _____.
   4. Feminists are _____.
   5. Fishermen are _____.
   6. Manicurists are _____.
   7. Meteorologists are _____.
   8. Models are _____.
   9. Pig farmers are _____.
   10. Podiatrists are _____.
   11. Poker players are _____.
   12. Politicians are _____.
   13. Potheads are _____.
   14. Sightseers are _____.
   15. Telephone operators are _____.

Answers

1. debased 2. disintegrated 3. disconcerted 4. deliberated 5. debated 6. defiled 7. disgusted 8. disposed
   9. disgruntled 10. defeated 11. discarded 12 devoted 13. disjointed 14. detoured 15. disconnected

Speaking of getting fired, back in 2009, my daughter, Annie Duke, then the winningest
woman in the history of professional poker, was a contestant on NBC’s reality show “Celebrity
Apprentice.” On the last day of the season, when the apprentices had been winnowed from 16 to
two, then-emcee Donald Trump fired Annie on national television in favor of the comedienne
Joan Rivers.