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"New" Words From the Geek Culture
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Jul 09, 2008 02:11 AM
from the bonny-earl-of-murray dept.
from the bonny-earl-of-murray dept.
thatskinnyguy sends news of Merriam-Webster's 2008 list of new words and, to no-one's surprise, a good number of them come out of geek culture: words like webinar, malware, netroots, pretexting, and fanboy are now official words according to M-W. The CNet article pulls out one "new" word for special appreciation — mondegreen — and, while the article gets the origin right, it ends with a lame call for readers to send in their favorite mondegreens. (CNet does have the good grace to link the Kiss This Guy site.) SFGate columnist Jon Carroll has been collecting readers' mondegreens since 1995 and his list is bound to be better. Quoting Carroll, in a prophetic mode: "This space has been for some years the chief publicity agent for mondegreens. The Oxford English Dictionary has not yet seen the light, but it will, it will." Would you believe, Merriam-Webster's?
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Is it wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:4, Informative)
Webinar : Seminar on the web, usually using youtube, flash or some other video/podcast like medium.
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately the parent's name is unknown, or we'd have a good candidate for a new word to denote a dim pillock who explains jokes. And, while the angels weep, gets modded up for it.
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Disown it!
And seriously, what does mondegreen have to do with geek either -- nor is it in any way a new word. This seems like a another sockpuppet article designed to generate traffic for a website.
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
What is a "webinar" for example?
It was invented by a group of HR people. They needed a cool new word for "webcast", so people wouldn't get angry when they found out that instead of spending a week at retreat on professional development, they were to be locked in a room with a projector instead.
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:4, Funny)
THANK YOU
First time I heard this was from our marketing guy my response was along the lines of a shutter and yelling at him to NEVER use that word again in front of me. They are web presentations. Webinar is a new word for the bullsh*t bingo card.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There are lots of words that marketing drones create that are irritating, but "webinar" has a purpose.
A webinar -- in the context my company uses it -- is more like a web-based seminar. Both a seminar and a webinar are targeted to an external audience (outside the company), have a moderator (usually a third party person), and may be hosted by more than one company. A webinar is more expensive than just a regular "web presentation" since there's some logistics involved (hiring a third party to set it up and
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
You're a marketer aren't you?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
my response was along the lines of a shutter and yelling at him to NEVER...
Does that count as a mondegreen, or just poor command of English?
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
1) something formed by or as if by weaving. There's a spider webinar garage
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
I find it egregious that it took until 2007 to add "w00t" to the dictionary. I was using w00t back in the Warcraft II and Command & Conquer days.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some juvenile delinquents that I need to evict from my grass.
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if you can guess what it means, it's always good fun to pounce on neologisms and jargon and grill the user why they are using them instead of a more traditional word. My Dad told me a great story. He worked for the University which was under pressure from its new Thatcher appointed Vice Chancellor to be more 'commercially oriented' while no one really knew in practice what this meant. The VC gave a speech full or management consultancyisms and uses the word proactive. Someone stood up and asked him if he meant active. The VC blusters and the questioner keeps arguing. After a very long time the VC says "ok, you win I meant active". The questioner sat down. The VC delivered the rest of the speech without much enthusiasm and left without allowing questions from the floor.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Primarily because, in my experience, most users of the word "pro-active" are unaware of it's anti-reactive connotations and use it to describe singularly reactive situations ("I want us to respond to this pro-actively"), or even in just syntax-ruining "I've learnt a cool new word" non-sequiturs ("our new rubber grommets have a 100% pro-active paradigm"). In other words, I'm convinced that alot of people use it because they think it sounds More Important than "active" or lack the vocabulary to better describe it.
It's kinda acceptable in most sysadmin circles as most geeks are aware of things like "pro-active" support (I prefer to call it preventative maintenance myself since it means less fuzzyness for the recipient, which we abbreviate to premaint in conversation) but neologisms are mostly a matter of taste. /spot the word-snob ;)
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
For a self-described "word snob" I'm surprised you bungled "its" ("it's") and "a lot" ("alot"). :)
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
I guess I'm just not cool anymore...
Oh, dear. Epic coolness fail! Newspeak is made of win. You are not a legend.
Parent
Dear Merriam-Webster: (Score:5, Funny)
You spelled "fanboi" wrong.
Sincerely,
AC
New word coined on Arstechnica a week ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Witness the birth of a new geek word on Arstechnica forum:
pludgeverb
1 [ intrans. ] to install an operating system update before verifying that it's safe to do so on the [Ars Mac forum]
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/953002313931
The thread is now the third link on Google if you search for the word.
SCNR (Score:5, Funny)
syn. "use Gentoo Linux"
Parent
For shame (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize being a language Nazi is nerdy, even by Slashdot standards, but this summary is just shockingly awful!
The headline reads "\"New\" Words From The Geek Culture". So the summary starts off with a single line on it, then randomly rambles on about CNet focusing on 'mondegreens'. Bzzt! Summary-headline mismatch already! Now it's possible that kdawson is just mimicking TFA, which does the same, but that's a frcikin' blog post! Somehow, a rambling blog post has been distilled into (if it's possible) a fumbly summary as well!
All this meandering is topped off with a quite inexplicable question: "Would you believe, Merriam-Webster's?"
Seriously, WTF?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Coherence and originality as so Web 1.0. The Web 2.0 way is to get a bunch of uncredited articles and make a 'mashup' of them.
Mind you, Mondegreen is a cool invention
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen [wikipedia.org]
meh, Webster's (Score:5, Funny)
Re:meh, Webster's (Score:5, Insightful)
I gave up on Webster's as an authoritative source on the English language after they added bling to its dictionary.
Why shouldn't a dictionary have that word? People are going to use it, and other people are going to want to know what it means. A dictionary would be failing them by not including it.
Parent
Re:meh, Webster's (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:meh, Webster's (Score:4, Insightful)
But how many times have you used mouse potato since 1993?
Isn't that exactly why it should be in a dictionary? Somebody reading something from the early 1990s might come across it and want to check their understanding of the meaning. If I'm reading old literature I'm rather glad that my dictionary includes "sweven" and "parfay" precisely because I don't normally use those words.
Parent
Re:meh, Webster's (Score:5, Insightful)
I gave up on Webster's as an authoritative source on the English language after they added bling [merriam-webster.com] to its dictionary.
What do you mean by "authoritative"? Do you think that the purpose of a dictionary is to tell you how the language should be used or to report how it actually is used? Most dictionary compilers see themselves as having the latter role, in which case "bling" certainly deserves a place.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Valid Joke (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
in one day, out the next (Score:4, Insightful)
This smacks of the dictionary trying to be overly trendy - I expect a lot of these will be quietly dropped from this dictionary in years to come.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Very little.
I remember the first year I read about this trend. They were inducting "bootylicious". During the same induction, they were also putting in some slang term from the 50s which actually had staying power.
it was apparent then that it was pure attention-whoring (if you look this up in MW you'll find a link to MW). People shouldn't be giving dictionaries which include these types of words the time of day.
Newspeak (Score:3, Funny)
I am hearing this more and more... I say STFU and just say "trying" or "working on" instead of bullshitting us while trying to sound cromulent.
On that note, while they're at it, they ought to add STFU to their little book o' words. It is a perfectly spatulant word and the English-speaking world would be metalopulant to finally instructulate it offically.
All perfectly cromulent words (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
now all we need is to add "cromulent" to the dictionary.
I don't know why you say that, it is a perfectly cromulent word.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cromulent
Re:All perfectly cromulent words (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Missing a word (Score:3, Interesting)
slashdot
`fanboy' didn't come out of the IT culture (Score:4, Informative)
Mondegreen has been around far longer than 1995 (Score:3, Interesting)
I recall reading a Jon Carrol column in the SF Chronicle about mondegreens in about 1986. IT was at the least no later than 1987. And now that I look in Wikipedia, the word was coined in 1954:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen
Some people just take a very long time to catch up with the cool kids :)
Re:Eye Four One... (Score:5, Funny)
If Merriam-Webster is going to start adding geek words (though the ones added are of a questionable credibility), I petition that they also add geek words with much more historical and cultural significance.
Yes, it is time a major dictionary added the word 'goatse'. But they should hide it in a tiny locked compartment in the back of the dictionary to seal up the evil it contains. Precautions must be taken to prevent unsuspecting people from accidentally reading words of this much power.
Parent
Re:Webinar? WTF? D'Oh! (Score:5, Informative)
That's because the summary is wrong; "webinar" does not come from the geek world. It comes from the Dilbert world, where marketroids are compelled to make up stupid names for every mildly novel thing. Also, "pretexting" comes from the worlds of crime and espionage. The submitter learned about it in a geeky context (hacking) because the submitter is a geek and learns about most things in a geeky context.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Although, of course, the latter could be used as a cynical way of describing what social engineering is...
Re:Webinar? WTF? D'Oh! (Score:5, Funny)
At my last job everyone used the term webinar. Just because you have a unique experience doesn't mean everyone else has the same experience...
Actually, if you have a unique experience, that specifically means that no one else has had that experience. I learned that at a recent company 'blogginar'.
Parent
Old news (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's too late. Already common use and even listed in some dictionaries.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/google [merriam-webster.com]
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/google [reference.com] (lists 5 references to google)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Verbing weirds nouns.
Re:Oxford English (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the OED is a descriptive dictionary, and historically has had a habit of picking up words that prescriptivists would rather not see listed. It may be a little less likely to acknowledge gratuitous verbogeny than Webster, but the staff of the OED has always taken their job to be the documentation of English as it is actually used.
Parent
Re:Malware... how is this different than Bloatware (Score:3, Informative)
I've always understood the word malware to encompass actively malicious software. Bloat is annoying, a keylogger is malicious.