Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

Yes, yes I know. Some of us get bent out of shape when others quote
whole articles.

If that's you, go ahead, sputter away and take your best shot.

In the meantime, I suspect the rest of the assembled company will enjoy
this.  

+++

Source: New York Times

December 28, 2003

What We Said and What We Meant, A to Z

By TOM KUNTZ

In a sense, we are what we speak. Good thing the English language, the
world¹s largest at some 650,000 words and growing, is eminently
adaptable to the way people change.

This year, adapt it did - quickly and often with wit - to modern war,
economic uncertainty, technological progress, social change, you name it.

Herewith, an alphabet soup of coinages that came on the radar screen in
2003. Many appeared in this newspaper; others were noted on wordspy.com,
a Web site by Paul McFedries, a Toronto writer and linguaphile.

Some words are not new but took on new meanings, while others simply
attracted unusual attention or gained wider currency.

A is for augments - people with implants that increase sensory capacity,
like hearing, or change appearance, like breast implants.

B is for bling-bling, the hip-hop term for diamonds and other jangly
ostentation - a word now so common that, according to news reports this
year, the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary were considering
adding it to their next edition. B is also for blogosphere - the realm
of bloggers, those who maintain Web logs of frequently updated entries
on particular topics.

C is for celebreality - a TV show format in which one or more
celebrities participate in real-life situations. (Think Paris Hilton on
³The Simple Life.²)

D is for dramality - a television show or series with elements of both
drama and reality programming. (As in ³AMERICA¹S NEXT TOP MODEL, a
Dramality Series to Determine The Nation¹s Next Supermodel,² -
PRNewswire, Jan. 12, 2003.)

E is for embed - a journalist placed in a military unit during the
American takeover of Iraq to cover its activities.

F is for flash mob - a large group of people who gather in one location,
usually organized in advance via e-mail or cellphone, to perform some
brief action and then quickly disperse. (²In São Paulo, Brazil, people
took off their shoes and banged them on the street. In one of New York¹s
six flash mobs, the crowd dutifully followed instructions to mimic bird
calls in Central Park for 20 seconds.² - The Week in Review, Aug. 17.)

G is for globesity - the worldwide epidemic of obesity, a term coined by
the World Health Organization in 2001 that this year became huge.

H is for ham - an ordinary e-mail message blocked because it includes
one or more keywords common to spam, or unsolicited junk e-mail. (As in,
³one person¹s spam is another person¹s Œham,¹ hacker-speak for desirable
e-mail.² - The Associated Press, Jan. 17, quoting a scientist.)

I is for imperial overstretch - the extension of an empire beyond its
abilities. (As in: ³Might Washington, like Rome, fall victim to imperial
overstretch?² - The Sunday Mail of London, Oct. 12.)

J is for job-loss recovery - a form of economic growth in which the
total number of jobs in the economy decreases. Related to, but not to be
confused with, a jobless recovery, which simply fails to create new jobs.

K is for knee-mail - religion¹s computer-age, tongue-in-cheek word for
prayer, often seen on signs outside churches: God answers knee-mail.

L is for latex - one of numerous words that some would consider benign
but that nevertheless sets off Internet pornography blockers.

M is for masstige - a term combining mass and prestige and describing
consumer products that are comparatively low-priced with a prestigious
brand name. M is also for metrosexual, an urban male who spends a great
deal of time and money on his appearance (likely to engage in
manscaping, the artful shaving and trimming of a man¹s body hair).

N is for nicotini - a nicotine-laced martini that some restaurants
introduced after they were forced to ban smoking.

O is for odortype - the genetically determined smell unique to each
person. Government scientists are studying odortype as a possible
identification tool in the war on terror.

P is for pococurante - meaning indifferent, a word that Sai R. Gunturi
of Dallas spelled correctly to win this year¹s Scripps-Howard National
Spelling Bee.

Q is for quirkyalone - a person who enjoys being single and who¹d rather
wait for the right person to come along than date indiscriminately. Q is
also for quagmire, an old word that some think now has new life in Iraq.

R is for rumint (ROOM-int) - intelligence based on rumors rather than
facts, which some believe led to faulty conclusions about Iraqi weapons
programs.

S is for shock and awe - a term used by the American military to
describe its strategy in Iraq, unleashing swift and overwhelming force
early in a conflict to defeat the enemy quickly. S is also for slog, to
plod one¹s way perseveringly, especially against difficulty (perhaps
when caught in a quagmire; see Q above). And spider hole, a term
popularized during the Vietnam War, but now used to describe Saddam
Hussein¹s last hiding place.

T is for tell-some - a memoir revealing private or sensitive
information, but only up to a point. (As in ³ ŒLiving History,¹ Hillary
Clinton¹s political Œtell-some¹ book.² - The San Jose Mercury News, June
10.)

U is for unilateral - an independent journalist, a war correspondent
covering the Iraq war who was not officially sanctioned by the military.
(See E is for embed).

V is for video pill - a camera the size of a pill that, when ingested,
transmits images from a person¹s stomach and intestinal tract.

W is for Wal-Mart effect - the economic impact of the retail chain, from
forcing smaller competitors out of business and driving down wages to
keeping goods cheap, inflation low and productivity high.

X is for xenozoonosis (zee-noh-zoh-AWN-uh-sis) - a disease transmitted
from an animal to a human after the transplantation of an animal organ.

Y is for yottabyte - or a million trillion megabytes, a term likely to
become more popular as online data and computer memories expand in
coming years to fill that amount of storage space.

Z is for zorbing - a new sport much noted this year, from New Zealand.
In zorbing, a person is strapped inside a large sphere, which is itself
held inside a larger sphere by a cushion of air (the whole thing¹s
called a zorb) and then rolled along the ground or, better yet, downhill.

Which, it can only be hoped, is not where the English language is headed
in 2004.