The first word on today's wordswarm is "lousy."

"Lousy" has been on my mind since hearing David Letterman use that word in a way that puzzled me.

If I remember it right, Dave was talking about NFL football players. He described them in the sort of terms you might expect: Big, badass, strong, huge.

His description of these players brimmed with comedic respect, but in that mix of words he called these players "lousy." Dave's words were something like "They're big, they're bad, they're lousy."

I found it hard to imagine Dave slipping a derogatory term into the discussion, but I did not know "lousy" to mean anything but, well, lousy!

I looked it up and spotted a secondary definition that seemed to explain Dave's intended meaning. That secondary definition: "amply supplied." From the context of his other descriptors I guess it was just another way of Dave saying that these guys were BIG: Lousy with brawn, lousy with might and main.

If I remember the sentence correctly, though, Dave just left it like "these guys were lousy." Not lousy with anything, just lousy.

On its own "lousy" is variously and humorously defined as "stinking," "shitty," "infested with lice," and "totally repulsive," terms which for all I know describe NFL players perfectly.

It actually made me think of Andy Kaufman, the late comedian Dave respected. Specifically it reminded me of the "fights" between Kauffman and wrestler Jerry Lawler, in which Kauffman provoked Lawler with vulgar taunts and ridicule.

Despite Dave's respect for the late comedian I found it hard to imagine him imitating Andy Kaufman by provoking professional athletes with insults.

What a strange, Dave-worthy stream-of-consciousness though.

But is the spirit of being "lousy with" something meant to be positive? Based on more common usage of "lousy" I would think the words refer to someone full of something undesirable. A politician is lousy with lies, for instance. The farm is lousy with cow dung.