Friday, April 18, 2008

A Collection of Neologisms

Not too long ago, I found an interesting site, Word Spy, that is a collection of neologisms coined in the last 20 years or so. Following is a list of some of these words, complete with definitions.

corporate anorexia
n. A business disorder, marked by an extreme fear of becoming inefficient that leads to excessive cost-cutting to the point of serious loss of business and sometimes bankruptcy.

bozo explosion
n. The large number of inept employees that a company ends up with when it hires an incompetent executive, who in turn hires incompetent managers, who then hire incompetent workers. clue stick n. A metaphorical stick used to "hit" a person in an effort to remedy that person's ignorance or incompetence. In the same vein:
"The Top 10 things to say to the terminally clueless:
10. Step into the rain and let a few clue drops hit you.
9. Go to a restaurant and order something off the clue menu.
8. Open up a book and read a clue chapter.
7. Step on the elevator and get off at the clue floor.
6. Pick up the clue phone.
5. Buy a ticket on the clue train.
4. Hit the road and go to the clue outlet mall.
3. Take a dip in the clue end of the pool.
2. Make like a detective and find a clue.
1. Take a hike in the clue forest."
—"Send a movie executive to clue camp," The Orlando Sentinel, October 21, 1994

ignoranus
n. A person who is both stupid and extremely rude or obnoxious.

floordrobe
n. A pile of discarded clothes on the floor of a person's room. [Blend of floor and wardrobe.]

earworm
n. A song or tune that repeats over and over inside a person's head. Also: ear-worm, ear worm.

videophilia
n. A sedentary lifestyle focused on screen-based activities, particularly television, the Internet, and video games.

Frankenfood
n. Food derived from genetically modified (GM) plants and animals.

completist
noun. A person who obsessively gathers the complete collection of a particular set of items (such as a musician's recordings or an author's books).

Frankenstein veto
n. A veto in which the words in a bill are deleted or rearranged to form a new bill with an entirely different meaning.

buzzword bingo
n. A word game played during corporate meetings. Players are issued bingo-like cards with lists of buzzwords such as paradigm and proactive. Players check off these words as they come up in the meeting, and the first to fill in a "line" of words is the winner.

toilet-side
adj. Relating to something positioned beside or within reach of a toilet.

trustafarian
n. A jobless person who has access to money — especially a trust fund income — and who affects a laid back, bohemian lifestyle. —adj. Relating to such a lifestyle.

splog
n. 1. A fake blog containing links to sites affiliated with the blogger with the intent of boosting the search engine rankings and ad impressions for those sites. 2. Spam links added to the comments section of a blog. [Blend of spam and blog.] —splogger

stink lines
n. In an illustration or cartoon, the wavy lines that appear over an object to indicate that it smells bad; the metaphorical stench emanating from something that is extremely bad. Also: stinklines.

barfmail
noun. An e-mail message spewed out in all directions.

barking head
noun. A pundit or commentator who speaks in a loud voice and whose comments tend to be abrasive, aggressive, and partisan

butt bus
n. A bus parked near a pub or restaurant that is used as the establishment's smoking section.

SINK SCUM
acronym. Single, Independent, No Kids: the Self-Centered Urban Male. Used to describe the growing number of heterosexual men who have little or no interest in marriage and children.

--I guess that would be me

inloviduals
noun. Lovers who maintain their independence and individuality. The writers Michael Holroyd and Margaret Drabble, who for the first 15 years of their marriage lived in separate houses, provide the archetype.

--this one fits me pretty well, too.

2 comments:

Lex Valentine said...

Ha ha! I love barking head!

BTW, I found this at A Gentleman's Domain. Nicholas had the link posted and seems to feel it may not last long on the net, that it will get pulled. I just thought that if you hadn't seen it, you might find it interesting.

http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=nul

Laura Lee said...

Hi from a fellow INTP. I hope that this is not too far off topic, but I came across your post on Neologisms and I'm trying to get people to submit a new word to describe the emotions some of us are feeling about the financial crisis and it seemed like it might be interesting to you and your readers. If it isn't, please ignore me. I'm not a spambot or anything like that. http://schadenfreude-baby.blogspot.com/2008/09/neologism-contest.html