OK, what the heck is "colocation"? In Portuguese, colocaçao means "placement," but I have feeling that's a false cognate to this neologism. I see the word as a banner ad on My Yahoo! placed by some outfit called Level 3 Communications. I even clicked on it to find out more, but of course they assume that any clickers already know what it means.

Meanwhile, some recent NewsSpeak that's been bothering me:

"on the ground"

"disparate"

Both are fine, but I find them suddenly very overused. Comments?

colocation

If it's a misspelling of collocation m-w online dates it to 1605. Does this meaning look like it works?

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=collocation

the old word had linguistic shadings; the new spelling is used in networking and usually refers to putting all of your servers in one room. there's another usage having to do with putting all of the people assigned to a new project in the same physical area -- I don't know how that one is properly spelled.

as to disparate, the wordsmiths were desperate for something to use as often as they use analogous, I guess.

I don't know how that one is properly spelled.

Neither do *they, most likely.

Thanks, tsuwm. Once again, you've come to the rescue.

I used to work for level 3 communications I should show you some mail they used to send it is ful of strange Newspeak

as to disparate, the wordsmiths were desperate
putting all of your servers in one room
Um...as in, co-location?

Jackie, you have to be careful not to drop a syllable and write collation. You'd turn this into a food post.

Hey--I'm not the one who brought up servers!

>>as to disparate, the wordsmiths were desperate for something to use as often as they use analogous, I guess.

I agree tsuwm. I wonder why that happens. Here in Québec there has been a sudden surge in the use of complicité (complicity).

Suddenly it's in the papers, speeches, people use it in casual conversations. Not that it's a bad word but why is it popping up so often it becomes annoying.

I find discourse another example of an epidemic omnivore

epidemic omnivore

Which brings to mind naiveté, bel, which one always heard pronounced as naa-eve-e-TAY...now it's more often heard (incorrectly or descriptively?) as naa-EVE-e-tee.

Been Englishified has it.

Well, that is often the case when words are adopted from other languages. I can say the new pronunciation grates in my ears but that is because I know the word and the way we pronounce it. To anyone who's never naa-eve-e-tay the new way would seem perfectly acceptable.

Englishified

You'll know it's been Englishified when you hear knave i tee.

knave i tee.

Yuck!

knuh-TIVV-ih-tee

Sorry. Just had to.