Hacking English at FooCamp
So, continuing my streak as the luckiest lexicographer in the free world, I spent last weekend at FooCamp. (Yeah, THAT FooCamp. I said I was lucky.) And because I figured it would be fun, I signed up to give a wordmaking session -- you can see it in the picture above, right there at 2 p.m. -- picture is by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid.
I know, I know, it's a bit over-the-top to call making new words "hacking English," but you have to draw your analogies where you can. You'd be surprised at the number of techie folks who won't hesitate to open a case clearly marked "DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE" but shy away from inventing a word. In my view, English is just another system, and systems are made to be explored, analyzed, and, yes, exploited and overclocked and hacked. Your language is just like your computer -- it's yours to use as you wish, and the only limit is whether or not, in the end, it works like you wanted it to. (And "works" for English means "am I expressing myself as I wish, and so that people can understand me?") And remember: English has no DRM -- derivative works are encouraged.
After going over some basic principles (which boiled down to 'make new words because it's fun, and here's some models for you to use') we started going over some examples. Because it was a short session, most of these words were made elsewhere and imported to FooCamp.
Some of the words we talked about are below. A few things: I forgot to ask people to write their names on their submitted words, and so folks were going to claim -- or renounce -- credit in the comments. Also, I haven't done any serious research on any of these, so it's entirely possible that genius struck in several places at the same time. (Hey, it worked for the calculus!)
burgle 'a small, bothersome insect or bug' [not related to burgle meaning 'to steal']
continuous partial attention 'an attention strategy motivated by a desire not to miss anything.' [This is kind of a cheat because Linda Stone, the coiner, knows I'm already watching this one!]
coprocranial 'shithead' [Although this form seems more adjectival, so it might be better as 'shitheadedness'. Coined by Nat Torkington.]
ecomaniacal 'crazy about money'. [Coined by Scott Berkun, except that everyone in the session was *sure* it meant 'crazy about the environment.']
frieNDA 'the practice of honoring the confidentiality of information provided by friends as if a non-disclosure agreement had been signed'. [Not sure who put up this one, but Gareth Branwyn helpfully pointed out that it had been in his WIRED Jargon Watch column of 8.11, submitted to him by Paul Boutin.]
guruing 'going around'. [From George Arriola, who lifted it from Japanese. It seems to have a more iterative feel than English 'going around' -- sort of 'going around (and around, and around)'.]
Googlegänger 'the other person who shows up in Google search results when people search for you'. [from Karl Fogel.]
goosh 'an euphemistic expletive to be used around children'. [We can always use more of those, right?]
herniac attack 'a panic attack that is centered in your abdomen, often exacerbated by caffeine and deadlines'. [On the model of 'heart attack'; from Andrea Dunlap.]
jot (also, superjot) 'joyously hot', or as a verb 'to take joy in one's own hotness, and relish it'. [From Andrea Dunlap, and Arwen and Meara O'Reilly. I can absolutely see this word being used on Go Fug Yourself, can't you?]
ludevescant 'evocative of a game; describing the feeling that someone is perhaps toying with you'. [From Latin ludus, 'game'.]
malignation 'the state of being maligned'.
mucknut [This is a word in search of a definition. Gareth Branwyn dreamed it one night. I don't think it's related to mukna 'tuskless male elephant'. Unless that was also in Gareth's dream.]
nagerate 'exploring or navigating with a small child; i.e., without fixed goals'. [A family word of the O'Reilly's -- so I promised I'd link to Paul Dickson's wonderful Family Words
.]spatiosemantic 'at the intersection of location and meaning: the spatiosemantic web'. [From Peter Morville.]
swassy 'trying to look good while sweating profusely'. [Hard to do ...]
teeping 'feeling the newness of being in love; a new love'.
triggernometry 'the mathematical calculation that leads heads of nations to start wars'.
Many, many thanks to all who came to my session -- the only downside of FooCamp is that it really drives home the tragedy of not being able to be in ten places at once, so it was especially nice to see so many people interested in making new words when they could have been hearing any number of truly awesome talks.
I'm still working on a big "HOWTO: recreational neologisms" post, but while you're waiting, why don't you hop over to the OUP blog, where there's a new column by Ben Zimmer? He's going to be writing about all the cool things the OUP lexicographers are learning from the Oxford English Corpus ... Ben's a great blogger over at Language Log, so you definitely want to make room in your rss feed for his new gig. (And Grant Barrett has made it easier, by setting up a language-columnists-only pipe from the OUP blog, here.)
Labels: fooCamp2007, neologism
This entry was posted by Erin, on
Thursday, June 28, 2007.
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1:38 AM
You are a jot and amusing genius! We all loved your session at FOO. Thank you for posting these. ;-)
2:22 AM
I actually had two possible idea and definition pairings, but scrambled them up in my little brain. I'm not surprised.
ecomaniacal - crazy about the environment.
economaniacal - crazy about money.
Great session - thx for sharing your expertise with us neophytes.
8:07 AM
Erin,
It was great to meet you at Foo Camp, and I really enjoyed your session.
I had a few questions I didn't get a chance to ask.
How much of a role does the number of Google hits play in decisions about which words to add to a dictionary? For instance, findability now has over 2M Google hits but doesn't appear in most dictionaries, which strikes me as odd.
And, more generally, at a time when we can increasingly look up terms in the Wikipedia, what do you think is the future of the dictionary? How do you see the amateur/expert authority game playing out with respect to definitions?
If you've already answered these elsewhere, feel free to just point.
Thanks!
8:33 AM
Peter,
Those are excellent questions. I think I've answered them before but not anywhere accessible, so I might as well do it here!
The first is that Google hits are important, but not the only metric. "Findability", frinstance, is pretty much find + -ability, and so it would probably start out as a run-on entry at 'find' (where we put 'findable'). If findability morphed into more of a specifically online thing, then it would probably get its own headword.
The problem with Google (from a lexicographical point of view) is that what it indexes isn't the whole world of English -- it's just what's indexable by a search engine. It's not speech, it's only a very small amount of printed material, etc. I often use the example 'asshat', which has an enormous number of Ghits but very, very few printed examples. But most people still read more print than bits -- as that changes, what we define will change. (Or once we go all-bit -- no paper -- there's a lot more room to define EVERYTHING and we won't have to do this kind of triage anymore ...)
I'm a big fan of Wikipedia, but what I think it will do is make people more conscious of sources and bias, not less. Just being a publisher and saying "I know because I'm a publisher" won't be enough anymore. People will ask "HOW do you know what you say you know?" I believe all the information, especially lexical information, is OUT THERE, and the role of the publisher is soon going to be making tools that let people find things out for themselves. Reference books will become more transparent, with links to primary sources. We can say we know what a word means because we have X number of examples of it in context that show that particular meaning ... and then we can link to all of those X examples. It's moving to much more of a "put up or shut up" kind of world!
9:29 AM
Here's my definition for mucknut - Someone who trolls gossip and political blogs in search of the latest scandals. (Derived from "muckraker")
9:35 AM
Or maybe a mucknut is just someone who really enjoys political scandals. Like, "Joe is such a mucknut that he bought 5 copies of 'The Starr Report.'"
10:32 AM
Thanks Erin! Those are excellent answers :-)
1:57 AM
Your session was a blast, Erin — and informative! Thanks.
Actually, I think many techie folk (at least in the open source world) seem comfortable coining a new word when they need one... and sometimes when they don't :-).
4:50 PM
I have a friend who was looking for input on portmanteauing snark and gloat. Snart, glort, and snoat all seem to be contenders. (I think of Glarkware when I hear "glark", so I'm not counting that one.) Anyway, what do you think?
P.S. I think of snowclones and eggcorns as partners, too, as the header in snowclones dot org indicates.
8:01 PM
Hi, Erin! I've just discovered your DE blog.
For what it's worth (day late/dollar short dept.), here is a roster of my original neologisms:
Abracadabbler
An amateur magician.
Faketoriana
A collective term for the items and details that characterize an inauthentic "Victorian" decor--as seen, for example, in certain small inns.
Sharetrek
Generic Star Trek-style science fiction that comes as close as it can to ST without infringing any copyrights.
Snowman's Land
A small stretch of sidewalk between two businesses that neither is responsible for shoveling.
Stripmallburbia
Suburban regions characterized by endless, pedestrian-unfriendly stretches of strip-mall development.
Nymophilic
Describes a person, for example, whose name is Bob but who looks more like a Harvey. "His given name is Bob, but he's nymophilic to Harvey," one would say. (N.B. This construction takes an indirect object.)
Synchrospread
The condition of every clock in the house displaying a slightly different time.
5:15 PM
OtherErin: I have to say I like 'snoat' the best. I have no justification for this liking.
11:05 AM
do not use 'goosh' in front of children from Austria, especially Vienna :-D
1:19 PM
Hop -- why? What does it mean to them?
It's not urgent, I don't know any Austrian children, Viennese or not.
5:06 PM
"kusch!" is a rather rude way of saying "shut up!"
If you'd ask me to spell it the way it sounds with the slur of our local dialect, I'd pretty much use "goosh".
Commending it for use in front of children... perfectly non-morissette-y case of irony :-)
hop
PS: _loved_ your talk at TED!
3:24 PM
Love the neologisms list! I have a contest blog of the same nature, but I illustrate all of the concepts in order to "whet" the readers a bit. I'll put up a link to your blog on mine. It's hilarious!
http://wordplaycafe.blogspot.com/
Thanks!