"New" Words From the Geek Culture 191
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?
Is it wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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:Is it wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For shame (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]
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.
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:meh, Webster's (Score:5, Insightful)
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 ;)
All perfectly cromulent words (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
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)
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.
Oxford English (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words, I'm convinced that alot of people use it
The Guide to Alot
a lot many Steph had a lot of apples.
allot to divide They alloted 2 apples per person
alot no meaning I found alot of errors in there post!
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:1, Insightful)
"I proceeded to approach the accused. Afterwhich, I proceeded to question the individual and
What ever happened to good, clean use of language?
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"). :)
Re:Is it wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
For reference, it's shudder that you're looking for, not shutter, which is what is put over a window during a storm.