The Star-Tribune wants your neologisms
Check out the article here.
They list examples of 'unwords' such as ex-door neighbor "someone who used to be your neighbor but moved away" and dark-thirty "a half-hour after sunset."
Of course, as with most newspaper articles about neologisms, they are starting from the idea is that these neologisms aren't "real" words. Balderdash! They're words just as soon as people start using them as words (instead of as quasi-jokes).
Google shows me at least a few natural uses of ex-door neighbor (that is, uses that aren't just the word and its definition) and my family has been using a variant of dark-thirty for years: we use oh-dark-thirty, which is any ungodly hour of the morning, e.g., "My flight's at six, so I'll be leaving for the airport at oh-dark-thirty." (It seems to be a USMC term, which makes sense as my grandfather was a Marine ... albeit an unconventional one.)
Go ahead and submit your neologisms to them (the email address to do so is in the article) ... here's hoping they get some good examples and can help spread them. The only bad neologism is the unexamined neologism, in my (admittedly biased) opinion.
Of course, I'm reserving judgment on their term baby bear, "when something is just right," as in "You hungry, man? Nah, I'm baby bear." That one seems just a bit too twee for the example context given ... although I'm enjoying thinking of, say, the guys on Entourage trying to use it.
Thanks very much to Amy for the link!
They list examples of 'unwords' such as ex-door neighbor "someone who used to be your neighbor but moved away" and dark-thirty "a half-hour after sunset."
Of course, as with most newspaper articles about neologisms, they are starting from the idea is that these neologisms aren't "real" words. Balderdash! They're words just as soon as people start using them as words (instead of as quasi-jokes).
Google shows me at least a few natural uses of ex-door neighbor (that is, uses that aren't just the word and its definition) and my family has been using a variant of dark-thirty for years: we use oh-dark-thirty, which is any ungodly hour of the morning, e.g., "My flight's at six, so I'll be leaving for the airport at oh-dark-thirty." (It seems to be a USMC term, which makes sense as my grandfather was a Marine ... albeit an unconventional one.)
Go ahead and submit your neologisms to them (the email address to do so is in the article) ... here's hoping they get some good examples and can help spread them. The only bad neologism is the unexamined neologism, in my (admittedly biased) opinion.
Of course, I'm reserving judgment on their term baby bear, "when something is just right," as in "You hungry, man? Nah, I'm baby bear." That one seems just a bit too twee for the example context given ... although I'm enjoying thinking of, say, the guys on Entourage trying to use it.
Thanks very much to Amy for the link!
Labels: neologism
This entry was posted by Erin, on
Tuesday, August 21, 2007.
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9:16 PM
Meanhwile, north of the border, The Toronto Star has been running a regular column by John Sakamoto, "The week's best invented words." Recent items have included... hmmm... ex-door neighbor, no-name basis and dark thirty. A coincidence, I'm sure.
7:54 PM
My dad was in the army and oh-dark-thirty was in regular use in those circles, and I'm sure I've seen it attributed to the air force before. I don't know who started it or when but I would feel pretty confident saying it's in pan-service use now.
10:53 AM
My family, when we rose early, would do it at "horrible o'clock in the morning."
6:37 PM
I think baby bear is a good phrase. I mean, its based on a children's story many of us grew up with so we understand the context (or do as soon as it is explained) and is just fun to say.
8:06 AM
My husband was a Marine, and he also uses "zero dark-thirty" to mean ... I'm not sure exactly, but very very late, or perhaps pretty darn early. Definitely during my sleep time.
3:48 PM
Actually, instead of 'baby bear' I have used the shorthand of 'porridge' - because you don't want it too hot, or too cold - you want it just right.
Or at least I do. And when I'm teaching computer stuff, my fellow geeks seem to grok it as well.
And Oh-dark-thirty is indeed pan-service. Dad was in the Air Force, and that's how I came to hear it, I'm sure.
2:56 AM
Now, I've never heard anyone say oh-dark-thirty, but I've been using late-thirty to mean roughly the same thing from the other side of the clock. Which is to say that if I'm up WAY past my bed time, so late that other people are complaining somewhere about getting up at oh-dark-thirty, I figure it's at least half-past late... So it must be late-thirty. Right?