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I'm moved by dale's steadfast search for neologisms to start this thread, in hopes that it will be picked up and followed by others. (to define my term, let's arbitrarily say "a word coined in my lifetime".)
bafflegab
[f. BAFFLE v. + GAB n.]
Official or professional jargon which confuses more than it clarifies; gobbledegook.
1952 Daily Tel. 23 Jan. 4/6 A new word for lovers of officialese is bafflegab, invented by Mr. Milton A. Smith, assistant general counsel for the American Chamber of Commerce. He has won a prize for the word--and its definition: ‘Multiloquence characterised by a consummate interfusion of circumlocution..and other familiar manifestations of abstruse expatiation commonly utilised for promulgations implementing procrustean determinations by governmental bodies.’
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apostronym:
a word that becomes another word with apostrophe deletion - can't, he'll, I'll, she'll, we'd, we'll, we're
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zyxical:
opposite of alphabetical ordering of letters.
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boustrophedonym:
word divisible into two letter strings ~ one alphabetical, one zyxical.
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tetrabard - a unit of vocabulary : 60,000 words; hence, a tetrabardian vocabulary is one of that size
"Steven Pinker in The Language Instinct compared
the probable 60,000-word vocabulary of a typical
US high-school graduate with the 15,000 words
used in the complete works of Shakespeare, thus
defining the "tetrabard" as a unit of vocabulary. We
suspect that David Ridpath, who reminded us of this,
may be a jaded teacher: "I can think of a few
centibards I have known," he grumbles."
- New Scientist, Feedback, 13 November 2004
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Quote:
"Steven Pinker in The Language Instinct compared
the probable 60,000-word vocabulary of a typical
US high-school graduate with the 15,000 words
used in the complete works of Shakespeare, thus
defining the "tetrabard" as a unit of vocabulary. We
suspect that David Ridpath, who reminded us of this,
may be a jaded teacher: "I can think of a few
centibards I have known," he grumbles."
- New Scientist, Feedback, 13 November 2004
These figures don't sound right. Is the vocabularly of the average high-school graduate in the US really 4 times greater than all the words used in Shakespeares complete works? I don't, like, buy that.
Last edited by Stag_Beetle; 03/04/2006 11:56 AM.
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Quote:
Richard Lederer, a lion among linguistics, tells us that the average English speaker possesses a vocabulary of 10,000 to 20,000 words, Lederer observes, but actually uses only a fraction of that, the rest being recognition or recall vocabulary.
Huh?
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Hey Stag_beetle, let's me and you coin a word. Maybe tsuwm will use it as the WWFTD. Here's how it works, I say ( "polybarb"?) meaning "many Shakespeares". Then you extend "polybard" to a "characteristic" and use it in a sentence, like; The Elvis impersonators sashayed acrosss the stage in a manner that the great wordwhiz, Milo, has dubbed a polybarbian strut. Then we become famous.  Or maybe you have to be famous first to get your stuff on WWFTD. I forget which. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Pinker said "(tetrabarb?)". Then in a translation... "....that the average American high school graduate has a vocabulary of 60,000 words. Steven Pinker has dubbed it a tetrabardian vocabulary." - Verónica Albin, Tanslation Journal, April 2005
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Quote:
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Pinker said "(tetrabarb?)".
no, Pinker said tetrabard. Shakespeare is known as the Bard, see? I'm sure you'll agree that you neeed to work on that reading level before you start coining words, okay?!
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60,000 vs. 20,000
it's those darn kids (and other non-HS-grads), dragging things down again.
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I'd like to see a neologism for the vestigal foodstuffs one sometimes discovers on their sleeve or collar that cannot be traced back to any meal in memory and must therefore be classified as an unknown substance.
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Quote:
apostronym:
a word that becomes another word with apostrophe deletion - can't, he'll, I'll, she'll, we'd, we'll, we're
This gets my vote.
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tsuwm, how about lethonoma, from Lethe, the river, and onoma, name: the inability to recall someone's name at the opportune moment and having to resort to "buddy", "friend", "you", and so on? Might need some suffix or other.
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I believe the word lethonomia already exists for this concept.
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lexicographicolatry
[neologism, from lexicographic + Gk latriea, worship]
reverence for "the dictionary"*
"The writer John Algeo, suggesting that only the Bible
is similarly revered, has coined the word
"lexicographicolatry" for the concept. That the book
became "more venerated than used.. mattered little.""
- Jonathon Green, Chasing the Sun
*sometimes referred to as the UAD: Unidentifed Authorizing Dictionary
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ekistics (i-KIS-tiks) noun
The science of human settlements, including city or community planning
and design. From: AWAD archives DALE--If you would like to look up more neologisms that Anu has already compiled, you can click on the button up near the top right-hand corner of your screen, that says Other Services in the little box. In the drop-down menu, click on A.Word.A.Day. This will take you to a new screen. When you get there, look in the left-hand column and click on Archives. When you get there, look over on the far right, then click on Theme List . There is no way to search for, say, "Coined Words"; you just have to look up and down the list. It's not too bad, though.
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>There is no way.. actually, there is. if you go to the a.word.a.day screen and click on search and then Search in Words and Quotes Archives Only for "coined words" you'll get a result that looks something like this.
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Ooh! Ooh! Show me up, willya? C'mon, Bub, it's mice at 20 paces!  Thanks!
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> zyxical ooh, damn!! I like this one!
formerly known as etaoin...
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Quote:
The vault was low and he bent his head to step down towards the water. In its limpid tintarron [1] he saw his scarlet reflection but, oddly enough, owing to what seemed to be at first blush an optical illusion, this reflection was not at his feet but further; moreover, it was accompanied by the ripple-warped reflection of a ledge that jutted high above his present position. And finally, the strain on the magic of the image caused it to snap as his red-sweatered, red-capped doublegänger turned and vanished, whereas he, the observer, remained immobile. He now advanced to the very lip of the water and was met there by a genuine reflection, much larger and clearer than the one that had deceived him. He skirted the pool. High up in the deep blue sky jutted the empty ledge whereupon a counterfeit king had just stood. A shiver of alfear ran between his shoulder blades. [2]
[1] precious glass stained a deep blue in Zembla
[2] uncontrollable fear caused by the propinquity of elves
Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1966)
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What's it all about? Alfear!
TEd
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Isn't this the neologism thread?
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And may the same fate befall your white horse, HL.
TEd
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Pooh-Bah
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Jackie thank you most kindly for the tip
dalehileman
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Quote:
Ooh! Ooh! Show me up, willya? C'mon, Bub, it's mice at 20 paces! Thanks!
Sounds interesting. I suppose the survivor could say that she saw combat with the murine corpse.
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 Confess I don't get the "murine corpse", Alex; but thanks for assuming I'll be the survivor!
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from ONeLook:
"Quick definitions (murine)
noun: a rodent that is a member of the family Muridae
adjective: of or relating to or transmitted by a member of the family Muridae (rats and mice) "
formerly known as etaoin...
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Quote:
Quote:
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Pinker said "(tetrabarb?)".
no, Pinker said tetrabard. Shakespeare is known as the Bard, see? I'm sure you'll agree that you neeed to work on that reading level before you start coining words, okay?!
Damn, tsuwm, I almost let your sniffy remark pass unaddressed.
Look, spellchecker, your citation of support for the legitimacy of the nonce term "tetrabard" is, we can only hope, not indicative of the quality of the research embodied in your lifelist of worthless words.
Now follow this closely...
(a) Pinker (page 150) was making a funny when he suggested that a vocabulary of 60,000 was 4 times the 15,000 used by Shakespeare in his writtings and should be called a "tetrabard".
(b) Your single supporting citation was obviously a googlized effort.
No self respecting lover of words would cite a translation that took Pinkers little joke as a serious word tool. Shame.
(c) You neeed to remove an excessive "e" in the "neeed" in your post above. Unless, that is, you can google two sites that prove unequivocally that "neeed" with three eees is the trend.
Last edited by themilum; 03/07/2006 11:09 PM.
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>Look, spellchecker and I would have let yours pass as a typo, except you 'typoed' "barb" three times in making your jocular point. p.s. - at no time have I presented "tetrabard" as anything other than a worthless word; but here's the other citation a used upon foisting this word on an unsuspecting public: "The total number of words found in Shakespeare's
collected works and sonnets is 15,000, and some of
these are hapax legomena - words used only once
in the history of the printed word - such as
honorificabilitudinitatibus, which appears in Love's
Labour's Lost, act V, scene I. Linguistic studies have
shown that the average American high school graduate
has a vocabulary of 60,000 words. Steven Pinker has
dubbed it a tetrabardian vocabulary."
- Verónica Albin, Tanslation Journal, April 2005
On Dictionaries: A Conversation with Ilan Stavans
http://accurapid.com/journal/32dictionaries.htm
p.p.s. - a good many wwftds are supported by OED3 and W3 evidence; often there is newer and funner evidence to be found by googleizing(sp?). Some few wwftds have no "real" dictionary evidence; but in these cases I almost always expiscate some legitimate looking online evidence. There have been exceptions; I mark these as questionable or jocular. Also, I've found many good citations using Google(Books).
Last edited by tsuwm; 03/08/2006 2:43 AM.
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googleizing(sp?). Oh! If you can biblieographize, can you then also googlies? Ick--no, you can't: it looks like goo-glees. Darn.
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in these cases I almost always expiscate some legimate looking online evidence.
expsicate = a person formerly an American Anglican bishop
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Isn't a googly (plural googlies) a method of throwing the ball in cricket?
Bingley
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Quote:
googleizing(sp?). Oh! If you can biblieographize, can you then also googlies? Ick--no, you can't: it looks like goo-glees. Darn.
Bingley's got it on googlies. And tsuwm was right to question his spelling googleize. It's googlize.
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Who's the most important man this country ever knew?
Do you know what politician I have reference to?
Well, it isn't Mr. Bryan, and it isn't Mr. Hughes.
I've got a hunch that to that bunch I'm going to introduce:
(Again you're wrong and to this throng I'm going to Introduce:)
Barney Google, with the goo-goo-goo-ga-ly eyes .
Barney Google bet his horse would win the prize.
When the horses ran that day, Spark Plug ran the other way.
Barney Google, with the goo-goo-goo-ga-ly eyes eyes.
Barney Google, with the goo-goo-goo-ga-ly eyes .
Barney Google had a wife three times his size
She stood Barney for divorce
Now he's living with his horse
TEd
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Have you seen this link? It looks like it might have some things you're interested in. Neologisms and English Around the World
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Pooh-Bah
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Jackie thank you for that link
the: The polybarb is surely a rosebush
dalehileman
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Quote:
the: The polybarb is surely a rosebush
Dale: Great! And as such a polybard might be the excessive ornamentation of a word horse.
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grotendous - a blend of grotesque and horrendous? That was so grotendous!  ~
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or horresque...
formerly known as etaoin...
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No, no, horresque is the style of clothing "worn" by women in music videos.
edit - which can also be grotendous
Last edited by Zed; 03/17/2006 12:08 AM.
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