On Language: 2015 New Words in Oxford Dictionary

Actually this was only the a quarterly update of new words added to the great Oxford English Dictionary but for some reason this quarter seems to be make the news headlines.  A thousand words were added in this go around and here are a few highlights.

I think the word that’s making the most waves is “manspreading.”  Now I know a woman must have come up with this term.  I’ve heard so many women complain about it, including my wife.  “Do you need to do that?” my wife once said.  “Do you need to display them as if their some sort of prize?”  Why is it that men have to sit that way?  I don’t know, but it just comes natural.  Here’s the definition.

Manspreading, n.: the practice whereby a man, especially one travelling on public transport, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats.

“Brain fart” made the list and I have to say that’s been around a while.  People use it at work all the time. 

Brain fart, n.: (informal) a temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly.

Brain farts happen more frequently with age.

Then there’s “hangry,” a perfect word blend of which I know exactly how it feels.

Hangry, adj.: (informal) bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.

Don’t get in my way when I’m hangry.  A perfect reason for meetings not to extend into lunchtime. 

I came across “fat-shame” a few months ago on The Anchoress’s blog.  Apparently someone was fat-shamed and Anchoress took offense.

Fat-shame, v.: cause (someone judged to be fat or overweight) to feel humiliated by making mocking or critical comments about their size

I agree with Anchoress.  That’s not very kind.

Now “butt dial” is one I would never have guessed.  I don’t keep my cell in my back pocket and I try to avoid keeping it close to my body.  (Aren’t people afraid of getting butt cancer from the radio waves?)

Butt dial, v.: calling someone accidentally with your mobile phone in a rear pocket.

Now combine that with brain fart and you get a telepathic phone call that gives off a malodorous scent.

Now “spear phishing” is one I’ve come across at work as they try to provide computer and information protection training.

Spear phishing, n.: the fraudulent practice of sending emails ostensibly from a known or trusted sender in order to induce targeted individuals to reveal confidential information.

With the attempt to eliminate gender in this oh so wonderful, brave, new world, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised with “Mx.”

Mx, n.: a title used before a person’s surname or full name by those who wish to avoid specifying their gender or by those who prefer not to identify themselves as male or female.

And with my statement above, then I can sense some of you want to get me through a “deradicalisation” process.

Deradicalisation, n.: the action or process of causing a person with extreme views to adopt more moderate positions on political or social issues.

No sir, it won’t work.  I’m a fixed radical to this secular culture.  I’m a Christian.  The horror.

Now really, do “cat cafes” really exist?

Cat cafe, n.: a cafe or similar establishment where people pay to interact with cats housed on the premises.

If anyone out there has the sudden need to play with a cat and wants to pay for it, I can charge a reasonable amount for you to come to my house.

Now I can go on and on with some of these new words.  I have to stop.  But there are more interesting words.  Go over to the Daily Mail’s article, who seemed to have the best piece on this,to see what fatberg, cakeage, fur baby, rando, and beer o’clock mean.  OK, one more, the sister word to beer o’clock.

Wine o’clock, n.: an appropriate time of day for starting to drink wine.

It’s always an appropriate time at my house to drink wine.  In fact I’m going over now for a glass.  Cheers.

Word of the Day: Cacasotto

Actually this is the word of the week, post the events in Paris and across the western world.  After my last post and seeing the reaction of the western media to this attack on free speech and artistic expression, I am very disappointed.  The one word that comes to mind is an Italian vulgarism, cacasott’.  My Italian grammar is weak, so I’m not sure when you drop the last vowel and use an apostrophe, but we have always pronounced it without that last vowel.  Literally it means shit-in-your-pants, and it’s usually directed at a person or entity, so it’s a noun meaning, one who is shit-in-his-pants cowardly.

 

That is what the western media deserves to be called in respect to the Islamic terrorists killings in Paris.  Many were calling for all media to dramatically publish the Charlie Hepdo anti-Islamic cartoons, not as an insult to Islam, but as a defiant measure against anti-free expression.  I echoed this exhortation in my last blog post.  Other than a few media, the western media, who supposedly prizes free speech above all freedoms, at least that’s what they tell us when they insult Christianity, were shitting in their pants afraid.  Cacasotts!

 

In an opinion piece on National Review Online, Rich Lowery had said it well in his “The Crises of Free Speech":

 

In the fight over free expression, the editors and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo occupied the most forward and exposed position. They lit a flare over their own parapet every night and said to the enemy that you may bring your worst, but you can’t make us afraid.

 

That their craft required such bravery in perhaps the most cosmopolitan city in the world is a testament to the embattled state of free speech in the West.

 

The sad fact is that physical intimidation works. Some press outlets pixilated or cropped out the covers of Charlie Hebdo in their coverage of the Paris attacks, as if they were the works of obscenity that the attackers consider them.

 

One expects the Liberal outlets, which are not really Liberal in the truest sense of the word, to be cacasotts, but the more common sense media outlets also pulled back from fully publishing a cartoon.  Cacasotts!  They have no qualms about nudity, vulgarisms, or even offending Christians, but because Muslims threaten violence and actually carry it out, they sit in their news rooms shitting in their pants. 

 

Jonah Goldberg, also at National Review Online, also had a great piece, “A Win for the Jihadists.”  Yes, despite being killed in their supposed martyrdom, the terrorists won because they cowed the western media.

 

The vigils in Paris are moving. The hashtag plumes of #JeSuisCharlie (“I am Charlie”) are endearing. The expressions of condemnation from Muslim leaders are commendable, as are the assurances of solidarity and support from Western governments.

 

But, as a practical matter, they don’t change a thing: The jihadists won this week.

 

Even if the atrocity in Paris served to imbue the civilized world — Muslim and non-Muslim alike — with a newfound resolve to battle radical Islam (it almost certainly won’t), this still stands as a victory for the bad guys.

 

And further down Goldberg continues:

 

As a conservative, I don’t like gratuitous mockery of religion, any religion. That’s not to say I think all blasphemies are equally offensive. For instance, I think most satire of Christianity is particularly cowardly and lame precisely because Christians are such a safe target. Also, after centuries of tolerance for satire of Christianity, opportunities for cleverness or originality are few and far between.

 

Mockery of Islam, meanwhile, whether in good taste or not, is dangerous and therefore also courageous even when stupid.

 

In a world where Muslim extremists weren’t killing people for such things, I’d be against publishing such material (not as matter of law, but of editorial judgment). But we don’t live in that world. And the slaughter in Paris only makes that more of a reality.

 

And finally I want to return to Lowery’s piece for a conclusion:

 

We all love the cliché that the pen is mightier than the sword. But it hasn’t been true through most of human history and isn’t true in many places — especially in the Muslim world — even today. The pen is an instrument that needs constant protection and the enlivening spirit of satirists of all sorts.

 

The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo understood that. Does the West?

 

That’s a rhetorical question.  We know the media has proven to be cacasotts.

 

I started my young adulthood as an anti-communist, cold war warrior, as we used to be called.  When the Soviet Union collapsed, I thought that warrior part of my life had ended.  Then there were the September 11^th attacks, and a new phase of my life started, an anti-Islamic-Fascist warrior, if you will.  It doesn’t appear the Jihadist are going away any time soon.  I’ll probably end my life still a rhetorical warrior against them.  But one thing I am not is a cacasott.

 

 

 

Sorry for being so political.

Literature in the News: New Words for Webster’s Dictionary

You can probably find an article in all the newspapers on the new words Webster’s is entering into their dictionary this year, but I went straight to the Webster’s website for the information.  
 

SPRINGFIELD, MASS., May 19, 2014—Hashtag, selfie, and tweep join over 150 new words and definitions added to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary in 2014, available now in print and online at Merriam-Webster.com. These new additions to America's best-selling dictionary reflect the growing influence technology is having on human endeavor, especially social networking, once done mostly in person. 

Yes it seems computers, the internet, and other technologies are altering our language.  Until this year I had never heard of “hashtag” and “selfie,” and until now I had never heard of “tweep.”  What does it mean? “A person who uses the Twitter online message service to send and receive tweets.”  Did we really need such a word?  As you can see I’m not hip with all the new technology.  I’m barely capable of managing this blog, and half the time I’m screwing that up.  My brother is amazed that my wife and I don’t have a Smart Phone.  The only selfie I’ve taken is with the time delay on my camera.   

[Which reminds me.  I was on a business trip last week and at the airport in California (of course) there was this guy—oh about early twenties in age—and while on line to check in was taking selfies of himself, solo.  There was no one else with him.  When he took the first I thought he was just trying to record the moment, but then he took a selfie of himself every other minute for about twenty minutes.  What’s with that?  And no, it wasn't the President of the United States. ;)]  

Other words of note highlighted in the article are the following, with my commentary in parenthesizes: big data (as opposed to metadata?), catfish (akin to the internet lingo of phishing, spearphishing, and whaling), crowdfunding (another internet hijacking of the multitudes), fracking (a non computer technical term for a change), freegan (oh that makes me puke), gamification (they have a word for this?), pho (what if you just added orzo?), poutine (sounds rather vulgar and it is in a gastronomic sort of way), social networking (hasn’t this been around for years?), steampunk (I knew that one, it’s a literary genre), turducken (this had to be thought up down south on someone’s peanut farm), Yooper (hey, I know at least one Yooper!).  I’ve hyperlinked them if in case my commentary made you curious.  

Ok, now I can go around and use all these hip new words and all the kids will think I’m cool.  Maybe I’ll even start taking selfies of myself.