As I have said before, I have a very wonderful, fortunate life and in that life I have a fantastic family and many close friends. One friendship that I cherish dearly is with my neighbour Sarah. We are companions in the treacherous sojourn through motherhood, where we motivate each other to exercise, participate in girls-night-out regularly and enjoy a coffee or beer on many occasions.
Sarah is another one of those women. A mother of two and college instructor, she is also getting her degree, as well as working on potential business opportunities.
I love talking to Sarah. We have lots in common: our status in life, our education levels, our family life growing up and our sense of self. I also love her "Darwinian lexicon". I mean that she, although being highly educated and very intelligent, chooses to develop her own words, evolving the English language all by herself.
We know we have a living language when the dictionary gets revised yearly to include new words. These new words come from people like us. We develop these words to describe new products and situations brought about by our quickly changing society and then incorporate them into our technical jargon, marketing, and product description and finally back to the consumer and into common use.
I want to share a couple of Sarah's words with you and I really want you to share with us the words you hear and see being created. If you send me words with a description I will add it to this post.
| Word | Meaning or Use |
| Noon-thirty | Half past noon or 12:30pm |
| Midnight-thirty | Half past midnight or 12:30am |
Side-by-each | Beside each other |
Ginormous | When I started drafting this article this word was not in the dictionary. Since the spring of 2007 Merriam-Webster has published their list of new words and ginormous is one of them. Good on you Sarah for being so trend setting. (Note - Websters New Millennium Dictionary shows the etymology of this word dating back to 1948-53 and describes it as a composition of giant + enormous) |
re-donkulous | Meaning incredibly ridiculous - Contribution from Amanda |
RetroTech | outdated or ephemeral technology which still may elicit a level of fondness. Fads and trends may witness some RetroTech being re-manufactured for consumer sale such as rotary phones, or other modern electronics made to look vintage / classy. - Copy This one brings back memories - aah! |
Send in your words
5 comments:
Many are opposed to this type of slang, claiming it denigrates the English language and detracts from the importance of the usage and learning "proper" English. Language in my opinion should be exposed to evolution, lest it become static like 'Latin' (and we know how popular this tongue is).
I love new words. The world moves so fast, there needs to be new words to describe new things. Many of the terms our children use today did not exist when we were young. Without movement and change, we could easily fall into the trap that we know all there is to know.
I believe that as humans on this earth, we truly don't have enough words that describe the nuances of feelings, thoughts and emotion... just think about how many shades of 'angry' or 'sad' there are for example. I find I often have to give a lengthier explanation using more words at times, for exactly how I'm feeling or what I'm thinking. It's re-donkulous! (means incredibly ridiculous) ha ha
... interesting subject :)
I love that word Amanda
"re-donkulous" meaning incredibly ridiculous
Beautiful - thanks for sharing
'RetroTech' - outdated or ephemeral technology which still may elicit a level of fondness. Fads and trends may witness some RetroTech being re-manufactured for consumer sale such as rotary phones, or other modern electronics made to look vintage / classy.
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