Editorial
Front Page - Friday, January 15, 2010
I Swear...
Lexicographizing in the 21st century
Vic Fleming
It’s “true confession” time.
I once had a dream that I would be responsible for a word getting into “the” dictionary. Just one word, that was all I asked.
I had a good many that I had created over the years, and I once kept a list. Ironically or not, Now, I cannot even find the list.
There were a couple of techniques that I used in making up my own words. One actually led to the other.
The first involved golf. There are any number of happenings or situations in a round of golf for which there is no distinct word.
For instance, in the middle of a hole, you might hear one golfer ask another, “Are you in your pocket?”
And then you see the one to whom the question was put nod, sadly or angrily.
This exchange establishes that one golfer has hit the ball so many times and so poorly that he has decided not to finish the hole.
The phrase stems from the situation in which the golfer has literally picked his ball up and placed it in his pocket. But it is also considered appropriate if, say, the golfer cannot find the ball he most recently struck with a club.
It occurred to me that “pocketified” was an apt term to cover this particular recurrent situation. I have used that term for many years now (in hindsight, I should have used it casually, though repeatedly, in this column.)
So, if you see me walking off the ninth green without having putted, and you ask me about it, I might say, “I was pocketified after hitting three balls into the lake.”
For what it’s worth, if you Google my word, you’ll get a hit or two. Most recently, I saw the following at some music site with a forum: “I've seen you play and I can shred Geddy licks all over your funky pocketified groovemeister playing.”
I’m not certain, but I don’t think that the poster was paying someone a compliment.
But back to my own thread of thought, the other, more general, area in which I had hoped to create a word that might get into “the” dictionary was the whole notion that there are actions that occur in day-to-day life for which no single word has ever been coined, to my knowledge.
For instance, I know many people who pinch and stroke their chins when they are thinking. I don’t think there is a word for that.
Punching an extra hole into a belt, with an ice pick, say, because you’ve gained or lost weight. No word for that.
Using Krazy Glue on a paper cut, or other minor injury. No word for that.
So, you ask, why did I begin, “I once had a dream …”?
Well, as anyone can clearly tell, the advent of the Internet, and the illogical expansions that have occurred thereon in the area of lexicography have created a situation where anyone can now enter his or her own word or words in various online publications that pass themselves off as dictionaries.
More than that, people can actually write their own, made-up definitions for pre-existing words!
Bobby Ampezzan of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette wrote a nice article last Sunday entitled: “Word up.” The articles subtitle, which just about says it all was: “We’re all lexicographers now.”
(Next week: Part 2 of “Lexicographizing in the 21st century.)
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at judgevic@comcast.net.
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