Editorial
Front Page - Friday, January 29, 2010
I Swear...
21st century lexicographizing
Vic Fleming
Continued from last week.
As I pointed out last week, thanks to the Internet, anyone can make up new words and post them on online “dictionaries.”
Last week I cited illustrations from the Urban Dictionary. Now, consider, if you will, SlangSite.com, which introduces itself as “a dictionary of slang, webspeak, made up words and colloquialisms.” Its entries include:
Goku: A annoying, stupid person who thinks she is strong – when she isn’t.
Rafalstory: Pronounced raffle-story. A story with no point and frequently no content. Named for my friend Rafal who tells such stories a lot.
Rainbowarise: To make something beautifully colored, derived from the English rainbow (colored) and arise, meaning to make.
Rejoclious: Absurd in the extreme
Wahey: Exclamation. Example: “Wahey! We’re winning the game!”
Weeple: Collective term describing all those vertically challenged.
Waffle: A person with numerous piercings and body modifications, from wiffle ball, the hollow plastic ball with cutouts.
JBUG: Just Between Us Girls. Indicates highly confidential discussion or information. Example: Listen, this is strictly JBUG. It goes no farther.
Like an ape to an empty shirt: When someone just seems to take to something, getting on smoothly, fitting in perfectly, and having the time of her life – yet in fact she is completely messing up the job.
Linkrot: Dead links on a poorly updated Wåeb site.
And then there is the Online Slang Dictionary, whose newest entries include:
Hanitizer: A quicker way to say “hand sanitizer – I use hanitizer after petting an animal.”
Lackadermis: Thin skinned. Unable to take criticism. Easily frustrated.
Skelator: A fragile person, much like Mr Burns off “The Simpsons.” Very scary looking, close to death but just won’t die.
Dain bramaged: Noun [sic] lacking in mental ability.
Radged: A little crazy.
You get the picture.
And if you recall my initial point from two weeks ago, I once had a nice list of words that I had made up over time. And a dream that one of them might one day be admitted to a legitimate dictionary.
Now that there are any number of cyber-tomes in which I could place all of those words, I don’t dare.
Why not?
Well, it feels a tad like the old Groucho Marxian philosophy that, “I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member.” But it’s slightly different from that.
I just won’t put my made-up words into books that are so easy to get into.
Let’s move on to another subject next week, shall we?
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