What's All This Brouhaha? » Portmanteaus, Neologisms, and Sniglets

yawnomatopoeia

Eric — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 09:45:38 +0000

yawnomatopoeia, n. — words that sound like gibberish because you’re too bored to listen to them. [Savage Chickens]

textnook

Eric — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:53:02 +0000

textnook, n. – a cozy place with books.Â origin – typographical error for textbook

Eschered

Eric — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 19:34:03 +0000

eschered /ËˆÉ›sh’É™r/, v. intr., to move or disappear in a surreal way, as might be seen in the works of Dutch artist M.C. Escher (e.g., Relativity).

Used in the novel American Gods by Neil Gaiman; since since in modest usage on the web.

od hac

Eric — Thu, 31 May 2007 22:18:49 +0000

Originally a spoonerism I inadvertently used in a business meeting.Â Someone proposed a kludgy solution to a problem, and I meant to say that we should use a better, more general approach rather than an ad hoc fix.

od hac /ËˆoÊŠËˆdi hÃ¦k/, adjective,Â improvised for one specific purpose, in a kludgy manner (as an undesirable hack)

Note that in the computer industry, the word “hack” has multiple meanings.Â Discounting the popular press’ use of the word with reference to criminal activity (breaking into computers), it can refer to either a piece of code written skillfully (“an elegant hack”), or badly (“a disgusting hack”).Â In the absence of a clarifying adjective, the connotation can usually be determined from context.Â In the case of “od hac”, the connotation is clearly negative.

Popemobile

Eric — Wed, 09 May 2007 23:20:47 +0000

BBC World Service aired a news item concerning the Pope’s visit to Brazil, and mentioned that he rode in the “popemobile,” though the word is not used in the written news story on their web site.Â Wikipedia confirms that it is a portmanteau, though it is said to be an informal name.

Nerdgasm

Eric — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:33:28 +0000

nerdgasm /nÃ»rd-gasm/, noun, a feeling of euphoria brought on by exposure to a new piece of tech gear or software.

Seen in Boing Boing post by Cory Doctorow, referring to student reactions to the Neuros OSD set-top box:

I’ve had a couple of these circulating in my class at USC this semester and some of the students have had a complete nerdgasm over them

The earliest occurence Google finds on Usenet was in a sig on 9 May 1998. The earliest usage in the body of a Usenet post was 11 August 2004, having to do with Lord of the Rings action figures.

Although I think the Neuros OSD is a neat gadget, it will take more than that to give me a nerdgasm. Maybe when they have an HDTV versionâ€¦

New PCs come preloaded with lots of “craplets”

Eric — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:57:10 +0000

I mostly use Linux, but on rare ocassions I do have to use Windows. When I bought a new laptop last year, I was annoyed at how much worthless junk (e.g., limited trial versions of software I don’t want) came preinstalled. Apparently I’m not the only person annoyed by how much hassle it is to get rid of all these “craplets“.

Portmanteau of the Day

Eric — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 17:55:44 +0000

grotendous /gr-tnds/, adjective, grotesque, horrendous. Used for extreme emphasis. Adverb: grotendously.

Cory Doctorow brought the adverb form to my attention with a posting on Boing Boing:

What’s weird to me is how the collective output of all that great work by great people produces such lousy outcomes — DRM-crippled OSes like Vista, stupid products like the Zune, grotendously complex apps like Office,

However, he points out that the adjective grotendous is “an old SoCal word”, and was used in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson:

it is not quite so grotendous, now that the loogie is off her face, but her hand is still perfectly immobilized.

The first use of the adjective on Usenet was in 1993:

Right on! Though he may beat out Branden (and his grotendous haircut) he still doesn’t outshine Dylan

The first known use of the adverb on the web was by Psyche on GreatestJournal:

Law Classes SUCK ASS. Massively. Grotendously. So badly that I have to reate entire WORDS to describe the atrocity.