This is from a few weeks ago, but I love word origins, here’s the etymology of the world wide web: “Web.”
Posts Tagged ‘wordplay’
double-u, double-u, double-u
Monday, November 29th, 2010Word Cloud
Monday, March 22nd, 2010I found this website, Wordle.net that builds word clouds out of text files.
So I uploaded the 380 pages of my Newlywed in Dubai: Best of the Blog book and came up with this:
Pretty cool.
New Words From the Recession
Thursday, March 11th, 2010The Christian Science Monitor has some new words from our current economic times. Check out: “Recession slang: 10 new terms for a new economy.”
Sigh:
2. Permatemp, n. The condition of being permanently employed as a temporary worker.
This could be due to lack of motivation to seek permanent employment, inability to find permanent employment, or the permatemp’s belief that a company will eventually hire him/her for the job s/he is currently doing for lower pay and without benefits.
Sample sentence: “Wake up, Joe. You’ve been here for six months, your cubicle is decorated better than your living room, and the hiring manager still doesn’t know your name. You’re officially a permatemp, my friend.”
Next week? My twenty-sixth in this job.
You do the math.
Portmanteaux
Thursday, March 11th, 2010This New York Times “On Language” column is from a couple of weeks ago, but it’s clever and educational and portmanteaus (portmanteaux?) are always fun.
Plus I agree with Mr. Garner that blog is “the ugliest neologism of the last century”.
Check out: “Webinar.”
South African Slang
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010So as you know South Africa is hosting the FIFA World Cup in June.
Ahead of that, the “Schott’s Vocab” blog on the New York Times has a list of South African slang.
Check out: “Soccer World Cup Slang.”
New Number
Thursday, March 4th, 2010No.
No, no, no, no: “Hella number: scientists call for new word for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.”
Before this article I’d never heard of “Yotta-” before (it means Septillion) and now they want a number beyond that. Guess “Octillion” is too much like Octo-mom?
But “Hella-” is too much like No Cal “hella“, which I feel is hella lame.
Mengagement Rings
Friday, February 26th, 2010I think I’ve linked to this blog before, but quite frankly I’m feeling too lazy right now to check. “Schott’s Vocab” is a blog on the New York Times that is a “repository of unconsidered lexicographical trifles — some serious, others frivolous, some neologized, others newly newsworthy.”
Fun puns, if you will.
Today’s entry is particularly amusing because Liz and I actually did this (with a $5 ring, though): “Mengagement Rings.”
One line interested me, though, “For a certain generation, in Britain especially, to spot a husband wearing a wedding band is rare.”
Men don’t wear wedding rings in England?! Can we confirm that?
