Vocabularies to be embiggened
The most recent category addition around here is Word Up, which generally deals with matters of usage. Once in a while, though, there’s an opportunity to introduce, or at least to spread, a neologism that looks promising.
Sources for new words are many and varied. Certainly The Simpsons have provided a steady stream of perfectly-cromulent words over the past couple of decades. There is no shortage of word-related bloggage: for instance, Mark Peters’ Wordlustitude finds several new ones each week, usually in Twitter streams, and while they all can’t be gems, I try to work the best ones into my own blogfodder. The term “turbo-lie,” attributed to Matt Taibbi, is almost assured a spot here. (Disclosure: I’ve been cited twice by Mr Peters.)
Politicians, especially politicians who have been deemed mockable, are a ready source of neologisms. (I have a title — Strategery refudiated — just waiting for a suitable article.) How many of these will eventually wind up in the OED is open to question, though I suspect not many.
One term I’m seeing more often in the dextrosphere (a term now five years old; its polar opposite is “sinistrosphere”) is “mendoucheous,” our old friend “mendacious” given a Massengilded overlay. You might also remember “doucheboat”; apparently rather a lot of words are enhanced by a bit of douchery (cf. “doucheteria”, a place “with mediocre food and obnoxious people.”)
Anyway, this is mostly a placeholder for the rest of you to suggest words you’ve heard, or words you haven’t heard but would like to.
CGHill »
25 July 2010 · 8:03 pm
Just to open the proceedings, I caught this a few minutes ago at Frothing Mouse:
It’s not too often you can get a proper comparative adjective out of a workaday verb.
Kim »
25 July 2010 · 8:58 pm
I cannot tell you how honored I am to be hoisted up as a “par exemple” for butchering or semi-maiming, at least, the English language. Especially for such an angstish situation. That’s a word,right? Right? It should be. I seem to be glued to adjectives and need to expand my range. I thank you for bringing this to my blemished attention.
CGHill »
25 July 2010 · 9:10 pm
I like “angstish,” though I’d be more likely to render it as “angsty” myself.
Kim »
25 July 2010 · 9:19 pm
I agree. Angsty is better and now that I think of it I’ve used that before. I must pay more attention. You know, if we were French they’da kilt us by now for not conforming to L’Academie. Of whatever it is. I forget, having gotten the degree and then forgotten what it all meant.
ak4mc »
25 July 2010 · 10:50 pm
The internet may be directly responsible for propagating more neologisms than Norm Crosby.
canadienne »
25 July 2010 · 11:21 pm
douche is the French word for shower (in German, Duschebad) and that keeps popping into my mind when I hear the various uses in English. How did it become a pejorative in English anyway?
CGHill »
26 July 2010 · 7:12 am
By virtue of its attachment to various feminine-hygiene products that borrowed the term. (There is a long and annoying tradition in English of associating that which irritates us with that which is female.) It’s really a back-formation: “douche bag,” part of the apparatus, was eventually stripped of its embedded space, and the resultant term was bestowed upon a certain class of undesirable, usually male. (See, for instance, Hot Chicks with Douchebags.)
I have a computer application which removes detritus from one’s stylesheet; it is called CSS Superdouche. This is, I think, closer to the original French.
Tatyana »
26 July 2010 · 11:02 am
*canadienne took the comment out of my mouth.
I know how the series with “douche” as a root came to be (having lived in US for over 18 years), but every time someone uses it as pejorative it raises my brow.
What’s so wrong with a shower? Even when one imagines it cleansing nether regions of someone’s anatomy – the cleansing function should have positive connotation, shouldn’t it? Furthermore, the apparatus for such function should be considered rather helpful and thus desirable – which is exactly the opposite of common connotation of a Douchebag…
Ah, English
CGHill »
26 July 2010 · 11:21 am
My own theory, for what it’s worth, is that “douchebag” is a step or two below “scumbag,” a seldom-heard colloquial term for a retired prophylactic. (At least, it’s seldom heard in its original context.)
Peter »
26 July 2010 · 12:06 pm
I found a good list of unusual words over the weekend. See:
http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2010/07/expanding-my-vocabulary.html
CGHill »
26 July 2010 · 12:24 pm
A few of those I did not know. (And I replaced your shortened URL with the full address, since [1] we’re not hurting for space and [2] some people don’t trust ‘em, even with a preview function in place.)