The English language is a vast restaurant kitchen

posted on: blog.oregonlive.com

The English language is a vast restaurant kitchen. New words and phrases are brought in, cooked up, served to customers and thoughtfully chewed. Most are quickly spit out in disgust. But sometimes an offering is tasty enough to add to the menu.

Wordspy.com collects some of the more popular selections. So take a nibble.

downager: A person who acts younger than his or her age.

meh-sayer: A person who expresses indifference or apathy toward something.

sexsomnia: A sleep disorder in which a person engages in sexual behavior while asleep.

recombobulate: To recover from a state of confusion or disorganization.

jihobbyist: A person who is interested in and sympathetic to the goals of radical Islam, but who is not a member of a radical group.

nutritarian: A person who chooses foods based on their micronutrient content.

auto-eating: Eating without thinking or being hungry.

hurry sickness: A malaise where a person feels chronically short of time, and so tends to perform every task faster and to get flustered when encountering any kind of delay.

e-mail apnea: The unconscious and temporary suspension of regular breathing while checking and reading e-mail.

lucrepath: A person who is pathologically driven to make money.

churnalism: Journalism that churns out articles based on wire stories and press releases, rather than original reporting.

misery lit: A memoir or novel that focuses on extreme personal trauma and abuse.

thumbo: An error made while using the thumbs to type, particularly on a mobile device keypad.

infoganda: A fake or misleading news story designed to further a hidden agenda.