Friday, September 23

new words ... officially

Word lovers, rejoice: Merriam-WebsterCollegiate.com has officially sanctified:

brain freeze (noun) 1991 : a sudden shooting pain in the head caused by ingesting very cold food (as ice cream) or drink. Yeah, okay, that's pretty old news ... actually, brain freeze these days is what my daughter calls it when she can't answer questions on a test. And she swears it has nothing to do with not studying.

Other interesting words I'd never heard of, but are cool:

cybrarian (noun) 1992 : a person whose job is to find, collect, and manage information that is available on the World Wide Web
-- hey, sounds like my dream job!

and

retronym (noun) 1980 : a term consisting of a noun and a modifier which specifies the original meaning of the noun ['film camera' as opposed to just 'camera']
-- hmm, having trouble coming up with more examples of this.
"hard copy"? "snail mail"? "landline phone"?

Anyone?? I challenge you!

1 Comments:

At 26/10/05 09:40, Blogger squarepeg said...

"analog watch" is perfect ... though I can't think of any time I've heard it used -- I've only ever heard people specify "digital watch". Thanks for playing, bro!!

 

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