I’ve written before about the delightful column in The Atlantic where Barbara Wallraff posts reader requests (and ideas) for words that don’t exist but should. I didn’t realize that she also has a book called Word Fugitives until my husband, knowing what a word nerd I am, got it for my birthday.
Ms. Wallraff describes a word fugitive as “a word that someone is looking for, which other people helpfully try to find or coin” and “holes in the language that dictionary words have failed to fill.” She usually lists the many variations people come up with, and then the one she likes best. Some examples:
* the word for that restless feeling that causes you to repeatedly peer into the refrigerator when you’re bored: fridgety.
* the word to describe how you hear of something for the first time and then start hearing about it everywhere: déja new.
* the word for the tendency to make more mistakes when a very critical person is watching: carper-fumble syndrome.
* the word for sending an e-mail that says a file is attached and forgetting to attach the file: forgetfileness.
Pretty clever stuff. Get it. Read it. Enjoy!
Entertaining and appropriate creations!
1. Just found “disemvoweling” in Nov. 10 Time magazine (Canadian issue). It’s listed as one of the top inventions of the year: moderators of blogs and other online forums have found a way to “walk the line between unregulated anarchy and oppressive censorship” by removing the vowels from problem commenters’ posts: disemvoweling. “The offending message is rendered less obnoxious, but it’s still possible for other readers to decipher it — f thy rlly wnt t.”
2. My 16-year-old son contributes “preposterone”: that amazingly manly condition of having preposterous amounts of testosterone. (It’s not an original but he should get credit for finding it…somewhere…)
Sue, I love them both — and I especially like that your 16-year-old son must be a word guy!
You will love our latest find. Go to time.com/joel to read a hilarious column about naming babies. You even get to vote for your choice of name for the writer’s still-under-construction son. I bet you will have no trouble finding the place where everyone (including me) in our male-dominated household laughed out loud!
Sue, you are right, what a hilarious column! Besides that laugh-out-loud place (must be the rhyming part, right?), I also found it funny how he called naming his baby “the most important writing assignment of my life,” planned to “focus-group” his work and worried about his choice being “name-napped.” Thanks for the link!