Brave New Words

This quirky, small-format gift book provides an introduction to more than 200 of the latest additions to the ever-expanding English lexicon. Featuring one word per page together with a brief explanation and an example of usage, listings include such gems as 'denture venturer' (the older adventure traveller), 'textual harassment' (persistently insulting someone by text message) and 'blamestorming' (using a meeting to discuss who is responsible when something has gone wrong). This simple concept book provides both a fun gift and an interesting talking point sure to please word enthusiasts everywhere.

more on: MacMillan

Twhatever next? - the lexicon of Twitter

by Kerry Maxwell

Why bother twalking in person? Why not spend your twime tweeting? – twit’s twonnes more fun! Sorry, I’ll stop, before this gets irritating, but anyone who, like me, spends time observing new additions to our vocabulary, can’t fail to have noticed the fun people are currently having with that consonant cluster ‘tw’. Excluding the word two and its derivatives, words beginning ‘tw’ only occupy a couple of pages out of more than 1700 in the current edition of the Macmillan English Dictionary, but contemporary usage is beginning to suggest that the run of ‘tw’ entries may begin to grow a little... I’m talking of course about word formation in the world of Twitter.

Enjoy reading this article!

707 Penn Gallery exhibit gives artistic, visual life to digital exchanges

By Kurt Shaw PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Currently on display at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's 707 Penn Gallery, Downtown, the exhibit "TXT" presents the multifaceted nature of our use of text.
For example, both Glenn Wonsettler and Dan Waber employ acronyms and other shorthand uses of language common in computer and cell phone-based exchanges to challenge the viewer's notion of our ever-changing contemporary language.

Buzzword Watch: "Acq-hire"

Buzzword Watch: "Acq-hire"
September 28, 2010

By Ben Zimmer

Earlier this month, a post by Dan Frommer on Business Insider had this to say about Google, Facebook and Apple: "Recently, all three companies have been making a lot of 'acq-hires,' where they buy a company to acquire its human resources." You read that right: acq-hire.

published on: visualthesaurus

Are You Fluent in Recession?

After you lost your "job-job," you've been "decruited" more than once—maybe that "job stopper" on your neck had something to do with it—and because your financial outlook is somewhere between "blark" and "Full Walton" lately, you've been alternating between "Wonderbreading" and the "Peanut Butter Challenge" and need to get "approval from corporate" before you buy even one lousy coffee. Does that sentence make any sense to you?
If so, there's no need to read Coupon Sherpa's 25 Recessionista Slang Terms, which would tell you that, for instance, "decruited" means:

To be fired from a position you haven't even started.
Usage: "Man, they decruited me before I finished the orientation."

Here, some other recession-era words and phrases:

Recession porn: With an apparently resurgent economy, the media genre known as recession porn may be gone for good. What, exactly, is recession porn? You know it when you see it. Basically, it's the fascination with all the weird ways the recession has affected different groups of people—the rich and privileged especially, because everyone knows the financial crisis has been tough on the working classes. In this look back, you'll see that recession porn stories include the economic downturn's impact on celebrities, the Queen of England, and workers in the actual porn industry.

Read more: http://money.blogs.time.com/2009/12/22/the-top-recession-porn-stories-of-2009/#ixzz11KDop9WC

Trashure: Referring to an item—perhaps a kitschy lamp, perhaps some reasonably fresh bread—that someone tossed in the trash, and that you take home and prize as a treasure.
Mentioned in the comments of a BoingBoing post on dumpster diving.

Read more: http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/04/14/word-of-the-day-trashure/#ixzz11KE4jPtS

Expensive urine: The phrase is used in a WSJ story about parents giving kids vitamins unnecessarily. Sometimes, the effects are harmless. But mostly, overdoing vitamins is just a waste:
Absorbing a bit too much of some nutrients, like the B vitamins, just results in "expensive urine," because the excess is excreted, says Kathi Kemper, a pediatrician at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
By taking vitamins that you or your children don't need, you are literally—excuse the phrase—pissing money away.

Read more: http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/05/05/amusing-phrase-of-the-day-expensive-urine/#ixzz11KEKO8eS

Unbanked: The Washington Post explains:
In the financial world, those without access to traditional financial services have been dubbed the "unbanked." With spotty bank records and thin or nonexistent credit reports -- documents often required to rent an apartment, buy a cellphone or even get a job -- they rely on storefront businesses that may charge a 4 percent fee to cash a check or a 995 percent annual interest rate for a short-term loan.

Read more: http://money.blogs.time.com/2009/10/13/word-of-the-day-unbanked/#ixzz11KEafxee

Mancession: The male ego is crushed. Men have reportedly accounted for 80 percent of job losses in the last two years. The disproportionate impact has brought about the coining of the word "mancession."

Read more: http://money.blogs.time.com/2009/07/17/deep-impact-10-ways-the-recession-is-hitting-home-in-lots-of-homes/#ixzz11KFGOKFB

posted by BRAD TUTTLE

Recessions-Era Words and Phrases

Are You a 'Nevertiree'? Or Are You Among the 'Accidentally Retired'?

The economic crisis has brought about a "new normal," in which Americans are adjusting their expectations concerning work, investing, spending, and one's "lifestyle." The recession has also brought with it new words and phrases, like "new normal."

Here are some others:

"Reluctant Breadwinner"

As defined recently by BusinessWeek, these are:
Women who wanted to stay home until their income suddenly became critical to the well-being of their families.

"Nevertiree"

As defined by Barclay's Wealth (via CR), this is:
a person who intends never to retire but instead enjoy a life of "nevertirement."
Hmmm… we may need a new definition of "enjoy," because the way the word is used here, it doesn't sound fun or "enjoyable."

"Accidentally Retired"

The NY Times describes this phenomenon as one that occurs when an individual over the age of 50 is laid off and faces the real prospects of never working again:
Because it will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the economy's recent pace, many of these older people may simply age out of the labor force before their luck changes.

"99ers"

The long-term unemployed who have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, and who, according to the LA Times, are trying to organize as together into a powerful political force.

"Mindful Spending"

The novel post-recession mindset, in which consumers actually think and consider value before they buy something. The phrase is used in a new book titled Consumed: Rethinking Business in the Era of Mindful Spending.

"Burrito Factor"

A means for analyzing an item's value, in which the cost of the item is measured by how many burritos you could buy with the same money. The system is used by Debt Ninja (thanks Consumerist), who uses the burrito factor to help him decide whether to buy everything from a salad to a sports car. Here's the Ninja's explanation:
Whenever I go out to eat and look at the menu, I run the burrito factor through my mental calculator. It looks a little something like this… "Okay, this salad is gonna cost me $12.50, which is the same price as 2.5 California burritos. Plus the salad is probably only going to fill me up 50%. So that means this salad is gonna cost the equivalent of 5 California burritos to get full. Death to salad!"

"Money Parker"

An investor who is not in the mood to take on risk in the stock market or real estate, and who for the time being, is content to park his money in CDs or bank savings accounts that pay off a measly 1% or so interest. The Boston Globe reported that bank deposits have increased 19% over the last four years, even though customers are getting pathetic returns on their money:
The rates are so low that many depositors are actually losing money after factoring in taxes and inflation, which is currently running at about 1 percent a year.

"Courtesy Pay"

Along with "buffer zone" and "debit card advance," "courtesy pay" is a phrase cooked up by banks to make overdraft fees sound palatable to customers, in the hopes of getting them to opt into coverage.

"Mortgage Worthy"

The roughly two-thirds of American consumers who currently have a prayer of qualifying for a mortgage. A report just came out revealing that 30% of Americans would not be able to get a mortgage today due to poor credit scores.

"Free Rent"

Closely related to the terms "strategic default" and the more folksy
"walking away," the "free rent" approach involves a strategic mortgage default but no walking away from the home until forced to do so after foreclosure proceedings. Until that occurs, the owner/defaulter enjoys "free rent."

"The Great Divergence"

Phrase describing the 30-year rise in income inequality in the U.S., resulting in the current state of affairs in which the richest 1% of Americans account for 24% of national income.

"Disposable Worker"

Also known as a "perma-temp," and known to exist in a "gig economy," the disposable worker is one who can be hired and fired quickly based on the whims of company needs, and who can expect no benefits, substandard hourly wages, and (obviously) no hint of job security.

"Hiring Workers"

An interesting "new" concept companies are considering to increase productivity and revenues, after productivity finally leveled off after businesses laid off employees and maxed out efficiency by pushing the (full-time and disposable) workers still on the payroll to the brink of exhaustion.

(by BRAD TUTTLE)

New! Neologisms of the week

TWITTERING: The fanciful language creations associated with the online Twitter system

Busted: has modified oil rig, or just plain rig. A database search of coverage of the BP spill finds the first recorded use of busted came nine days into the crisis on April 29, when the MSNBC host Ed Schultz said, “The busted rig is leaking — get this — 200,000 gallons of oil a day.”

Chunking: In recent decades, the study of language acquisition and instruction has increasingly focused on “chunking”: how children learn language not so much on a word-by-word basis but in larger “lexical chunks” or meaningful strings of words that are committed to memory

Cracking the jargon: how to interpret five sentences commonly used by stock market experts

MAMIL: Middle-Aged Men In Lycra, taking up cycling with enthusiasm, in the process spending freely on high-end cycles and all the accoutrements, especially the clothing.