Google, Polyamory, Spyware Added to Dictionary
It's new word time again! Already. I was either aflutter with excitement or slightly chilly - can't be sure which - upon spotting the news in today's L.A. Times that google has attained worddom*. The Times focused somewhat on how very quickly google became a verb (meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information... on the World Wide Web"). It took just five years. A lot of people have been using it as a word often enough that it likely could have been added earlier. But mostly the Times was concerned on the potential impact on Google's trademark. Of less interest: what's in the public's interest. At least they gave readers a bit of entertaining trivia to divert us from wondering about that: the new word falls in between "goofy" and "googly-eyed", how wacky!
Merriam-Webster doesn't just cause corporations headaches over their intellectual property! They've added almost 100 shiny, new words including mouse potato ("a person who spends a great deal of time using a computer"), spyware, biodiesel, wave pool ("a large swimming pool equipped with a machine for producing waves"), polyamory, and coqui. A coqui is a "small chiefly nocturnal" frog that lives in trees which does not appear to have any links to polyamory, at least based on its definition. However, ownership of either exotic frogs and/or a wave pool would seem likely to attract people to your pad for either polyamorous or non-polyamorous purposes.
Please note that ownership of wave pools and/or exotic frogs that live in trees may be illegal and/or irresponsible in some areas, such as a dorm in winter (though if you manage to put a large swimming pool in a dorm room... kudos). Also, either might not really attract anyone for any purpose. Use of biodiesels is much more likely to attract people, mainly because they'll think you've got french fries.
*Worddom isn't a word? Well, that's ridiculous. Freakin' "drama queen", which, let's face it, is a phrase, gets to be a word and perfectly logical, compact, one-word "worddom" is left out in the cold? Sigh. So wrong. So very, very wrong. Noah Webster would be with me on this one. If they have dictionaries wherever he is, he's probably playing scrabble and putting down "worddom" right now. Poor Noah. I hope whoever he's playing with doesn't challenge it!
Missing Persons - Words (available on The Best of Missing Persons)
Merriam-Webster doesn't just cause corporations headaches over their intellectual property! They've added almost 100 shiny, new words including mouse potato ("a person who spends a great deal of time using a computer"), spyware, biodiesel, wave pool ("a large swimming pool equipped with a machine for producing waves"), polyamory, and coqui. A coqui is a "small chiefly nocturnal" frog that lives in trees which does not appear to have any links to polyamory, at least based on its definition. However, ownership of either exotic frogs and/or a wave pool would seem likely to attract people to your pad for either polyamorous or non-polyamorous purposes.
Please note that ownership of wave pools and/or exotic frogs that live in trees may be illegal and/or irresponsible in some areas, such as a dorm in winter (though if you manage to put a large swimming pool in a dorm room... kudos). Also, either might not really attract anyone for any purpose. Use of biodiesels is much more likely to attract people, mainly because they'll think you've got french fries.
*Worddom isn't a word? Well, that's ridiculous. Freakin' "drama queen", which, let's face it, is a phrase, gets to be a word and perfectly logical, compact, one-word "worddom" is left out in the cold? Sigh. So wrong. So very, very wrong. Noah Webster would be with me on this one. If they have dictionaries wherever he is, he's probably playing scrabble and putting down "worddom" right now. Poor Noah. I hope whoever he's playing with doesn't challenge it!
Missing Persons - Words (available on The Best of Missing Persons)
posted by trill42 | 7:49 PM
2 Comments:
Heheh, these dictionary posts are always really interesting and fun! ...Well, your blog is always interesting and fun anyway.
Thanks on both counts!! :)
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