Showing posts with label Washington Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington Post. Show all posts

Sunday, October 18, 2015

More On Neologisms

I love word play! Puns, spoonerisms, double entendres, portmanteaux, paraprosdokian sentencesredundant acronym syndrome acronyms, and humorous neologisms are bound to delight me. Results may vary...

Inspired by the viral list of neologisms you've undoubtedly seen, I published a collection of 100 pretty good examples. And then, before the ink was even dry, I set out to offer a little more on (moron) this type of humor.


ne·ol·o·gism

  (nē-ŏl′ə-jĭz′əm)
n.
1. new word, expression, or usage.
2. The creation or use of new words or senses.


You know that list of 14 funny neologisms which just showed up in your Facebook newsfeed (or possibly in your email inbox if you are over 50 years old)? The one that starts with "Coffee: the person upon whom one coughs"? These are great neologisms, but (a) they are not new and (b) they are not the product of something called the Mensa Invitational!

As a subscriber of the Washington Post, a decades-long fan of WaPo's weekly Style Invitational feature (including annual neologism contests), and a lapsed Mensan, I feel a certain compulsion to point out that this list has been circulating for years. It is not new, though occasionally someone will modify the content with an updated year (the 2008 list was relabeled as the 2009 list, for example). The annual results are often repeated on other websites, such as TheAdultGamer.com with attribution to WaPo, but for some reason a version incorrectly attributed to Mensa is persistently making the rounds.

Points to ponder:
  • Neologisms are real, naturally occurring features of a living language 
  • The annual Washington Post Style Invitational contest invites readers to come up with especially creative forms of neologisms. 
  • Each year, the Style Invitational contest has some sort of twist to the rules, e.g., change the word by one letter, or move the first letter to the end of the word, or spell the word in reverse order.
  • People like and tend to combine and recirculate the lists
  • Possibly as an homage to the cleverness of Style Invitational contestants, one popular version of the list has been mistakenly attributed to Mensa, the high IQ society
  • After a neologism becomes accepted into mainstream language it is no longer a "new word" 

If you are interested in researching the history of various lists in circulation, please examine the following links:

If you are interested in enjoying a list of 100 neologisms, and perhaps sharing some of your own, feast your eyes on this alphabetical list collected from various sources.



What happens when a newly created word moves beyond the humor category and enters the formal lexicon? The following neologisms have been formally accepted into mainstream language, as evidenced by appearing in a respectable dictionary. As a result, they can no longer be classified as neologisms.
  • D'oh!: An exclamation meaning damn (usually after a mistake by the speaker).
  • Wicked: Good or cool.
  • Google: To look up information on the Internet.

Here are 19 more former neologisms invented by famous writers
  • Banana republic
  • Beatnik
  • Cyberspace
  • Freelance
  • Hard-Boiled
  • Butterfingers
  • Chortle
  • Doormat
  • Factoid
  • Feminist
  • Gremlin
  • Meme
  • Nerd
  • Oxbridge
  • Pedestrian
  • Scientist
  • Workaholic
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo


And here are 12 brand names or words created especially for advertising or PR campaigns that are now used generically.
  • Aspirin
  • Hoover
  • Laundromat
  • Band-aid
  • Kleenex
  • Frisbee
  • Tipex
  • Xerox
  • Tupperware
  • Escalator
  • Granola
  • Zipper
My final contribution to this post offering more on neologisms is a mention of the Urban Dictionary, a crowd-sourced compendium of often humorous, occasionally scandalous new words and slang. 

A living language evolves. 

100 Funny Neologisms

Some of these are tied to very specific cultural references. I made no effort to rank or cull these, since the value of each depends on you, the reader. If I missed some, feel free to add your favorites in the comments! 

1. 404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message 404 Not Found, meaning that the requested document could not be located.

2. Abdicate: to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

3. Acme: a generic skin disease.

4. Adulatery: cheating on one's wife with a much younger woman who holds you in awe.

5. Antifun gal: a prude.

6. App: Software application for a smartphone or tablet computer.

7. Auto-da-feh: the extermination of heretics via drowning in a vat of pus.

8. Balderdash: a rapidly receding hairline.

9. BFF: Stands for best friends forever. Used to state how close you are to another individual.

10. Brangelina: used to refer to supercouple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

11. Burglesque: a poorly planned break-in. (See: Watergate)

12. Chilax: To calm down or relax, it is a slang term used when someone is starting to get uptight about something that is happening.

13. Circumvent: an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

14. Coffee: the person upon whom one coughs.

15. Coiterie: a very, very close-knit group.

16. Contratemps: the resentment permanent workers feel toward the fill-in workers.

17. Crapacity: The size of one's attic.

18. Crowdsourcing: The activity of getting a large group of people to contribute resource to project, especially by using a website where people can make contributions.

19. Defrigerator: Start saving energy now with this special offer from Pepco!

20. Deifenestration: to throw all talk of God out the window.

21. DIOS: the one true operating system.

22. Doltergeist: a spirit that decides to haunt someplace stupid, such as your septic tank.

23. Dopeler effect: the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

24. Ego surfer: A person who boosts his ego by searching for his own name on Google and other search engines.

25. Elepants: too-tight jeans on broad-beamed people.

26. Emasculathe: a tool for castration.

27. Epigramp: A maxim that brands the speaker as an old codger. “If God had wanted women to wear pants . . .”

28. Errudition: Comical misuse of big words. “Madam, your dress looks positively superfluous on you tonight,” he said with amazing errudition.

29. Eruditz: A philosophy professor who can’t figure out how to work the copying machine.

30. Esplanade: to attempt an explanation while drunk.

31. Eunouch: the pain of castration.

32. Flabbergasted: appalled over how much weight you have gained.

33. Flatulance: emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

34. Foreploy: any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of obtaining sex.

35. Fortissimoe: the musical moment produced when someone serially slaps the faces of the first-violin section.

36. Frisbeetarianism: The belief that when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

37. Gargoyle: olive-flavored mouthwash.

38. Genitaliar: an image-enhancing object that can be carried in a man's front pocket.

39. Geobragging: Repeated status updates noting your location in an attempt to get attention or make other people jealous.

40. Giraffiti: vandalism spray-painted very, very high, such as the famous "Surrender Dorothy" on the Beltway overpass.

41. Glibido: all talk and no action.

42. Goodzilla: a giant lizard that puts out forest fires by stamping on them.

43. Guillozine: a magazine for executioners.

44. Guiltar: A musical instrument whose strings are pulled by your mother.

45. Hindkerchief: really expensive toilet paper; toilet paper at Buckingham Palace.

46. Hindprint: indentation made by a couch potato.

47. Hipatitis: terminal coolness.

48. Hozone: the area around 14th Street.

49. Impotience: eager anticipation by men awaiting their Viagra prescription.

50. Inoculatte: to take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

51. Intaxication: euphoria at getting a refund from the IRS, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

52. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like a serious bummer.

53. Lollapalooka: someone who has taken one too many turns in the mosh pit.

54. Lymph: to walk with a lisp.

55. Metrosexual: A heterosexual man who likes the interests traditionally associated with women or homosexual men (e.g., shopping, fashion, his appearance) .

56. Mitthead – An individual who constantly changes his political positions to suit his audience and objectives,”

57. Moon-basing – The act of a candidate or surrogate offhandedly proposing a policy so outrageous that it significantly harms the candidate’s electability.

58. Muffin top: This refers to the (often unsightly) roll of fat that appears on top of trousers that feature a low waist.

59. Nazigator: an overbearing member of your carpool.

60. Necronancy: communication with the late Ernie Bushmiller.

61. Negligent: describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

62. Newtspaper: the Washington Times.

63. Noob: Someone who is new to an online community or game.

64. Osteopornosis: a degenerate disease.

65. Oyster: a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

66. Pectacles: gladiator movies.

67. Percycution: Giving your child a name he will hate for the rest of his life.

68. Pokemon: a Rastafarian proctologist.

69. Quartersack: On the Redskins, it's the player who lines up behind the center and takes the snap.

70. Racne: Acne located on a woman’s chest.

71. Rectitude: the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

72. Refiance: To replace your subprime boyfriend when your interest starts to vary.

73. Reintarnation: coming back to life as a hillbilly.

74. Republican’ts – The 49 percent of Republicans who, in a recent survey, were unable to explain the meaning of their party’s initials “GOP.

75. Rickwad – An individual who claims to be a devout Christian but supports policies that indicate otherwise.

76. Rococoa: Haute chocolate

77. Santorum – We'll let you look that one up for yourself.

78. Sarchasm: the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn't get it.

79. Sata: a mythical being who brings toys to bad children.

80. Skilljoy: The would-be friend who’s a bit better than you at everything.

81. Socceur: the proper spelling of the sport for the next four years, alas.

82. Spam: Flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it.

83. Sparadigm: A model panhandler.

84. Staycation: A vacation at home or near home (usually due to financial constraints preventing a holiday abroad).

85. Stitch 'n' bitch: A gathering of individuals who chat or gossip while knitting or crocheting.

86. Stupfather: Woody Allen.

87. Suckotash: a dish consisting of corn, lima beans and tofu.

88. Synapple: a perfect beverage to accompany brain food.

89. Taterfamilias: the head of the Potato Head family.

90. Tatyr: a lecherous Mr. Potato Head.

91. Tebowing: description of a prayerful victory stance derived from NFL quarterback Tim Tebow.

92. Testicle: a humorous question on an exam.

93. Thripp: a bug.

94. Transvestheight: The difference between the jockstrap and the bra.

95. Troll: An individual who posts inflammatory, rude, and obnoxious comments to an online community.

96. Tweet cred: social standing on Twitter.

97. Unappalin’ – Adjective used to describe a person with a combination of physical attractiveness, ruthless ambition and limited mental capacity.

98. Vagjayjay: Slang term for the vagina that was believed to have been coined by Oprah.

99. Vaseball: a game of catch played by children in the living room.

100. Whitetater: a political hot potato.

101. Willy-nilly: impotent.

102. Writer's tramp: a woman who practices poetic licentiousness.

103. And, Lust: an unseemly craving for this [final] position in the [Style Invitational] column. [Note, the Style Invitational editor usually publishes a groaner of an entry at the end of each list.]