Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

Mashing up frankenwords for infoholic snerts

Another slathering of American English is hurled at the media, with Netscape's portal engaged in one of its frequent rounds of new-word spotting. This time, with a hint of triumph, proclaiming that

"American English is a grand language for the simple reason that it's the most flexible language in the world. New words and usage are coined at a phenomenal rate, and they have just been given added legitimacy by The New Oxford American Dictionary"

They provide words (no definitions) including:

"Words in the News: al Qaeda, antiterrorism, frankenfood, Gitmo, intelligent design, Falun Gong, bunkerbuster, faith-based, hate crime, John F. Kerry (his name is a dictionary item - how?), and greenwash.

Modern Times: 9/11, Amber alert, reality TV, taikonaut, smart mob, supersize, Texas Hold 'em, air rage, safe room, conflict diamond, fake bake, death metal, sizeism, smokeasy, trustafarian, mash up, permatemp, and barista (a word which you will already find in an Italian dictionary).

Computers and Technology: adbot, blogosphere, bluetooth, wiki, phishing, malware, infoholic, addy, hacktivist, dataveillance, snert, megapixel, code monkey, lurker, and RFID. (most of which are not new to IT workers by any means).

Funny "ha ha" (and Funny "strange"): buckle bunny, cankle, clueful, cone of silence (which only originated on television some 35 years ago), FUD, ginormous, labradoodle, snivel gear, shojo, unobtainium, noogie, Joe Schmo, ka-ching, Raelian, and prairie-dogging."

A list which seems to have been simply plucked out of the daily news for the last few weeks or so, with no apparent bearing on actual use by the population, becoming story-fodder provided by buzz-words and content-filling hype served up by the media. (It also seems to escape comment that Americans seem extremely adept at adding neologisms before learning to use existing words properly.) Ultimately, its just semantic churn which flows according to the media's focus, and which propably strips language of more meaning than it invests.

The story also mentions "competitor" (yes, apparently even Dictionaries compete) Merriam-Webster's "words that aren't really words" which sparks the enthusiastic hyperbole that "...you have to admit that these non-words really should be words!" - even including an insult for the semantically-challenged: "lingweenie (n): a person incapable of producing neologisms".

Item posted by AutoEditor at 10:57 am ::