Hacking English at FooCamp
Thursday, June 28, 2007 by Erin
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
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