Thursday, May 26, 2011

Neologisms of Late - Sofalizing

A dear friend recently brought a new word to my attention, on Facebook of all places. Here it is with its MacMillan Dictionary Buzzword definition:

sofalizing also sofalising
noun [uncountable]
the activity of using the Internet or other electronic devices to socialize with people from home, rather than meeting them face to face

sofalize also sofalise
verb [intransitive]
sofalizer also sofaliser
noun [countable]

'Millions of us have given up socialising for "sofalising" – talking to pals via phones and the net instead of going out.'
THE SUN 11TH NOVEMBER 2010

'Researchers claim nearly a quarter of us sofalise every night – rather than go to a pub, club or village hall to meet people face to face, we plop down on the sofa … spending hours updating our profiles on social networking sites, chatting online or Tweeting …'
DAILY MAIL 15TH NOVEMBER 2010

'There is even an army of "extreme sofalisers" – the three per cent who spend a staggering 25 hours or more each week talking to friends via electronic devices.'
TELEGRAPH, UK 30TH NOVEMBER 2010

The word reminded me of this xkcd comic.


I especially love the mouseover on the xkcd site:

I'm waiting for the day when, if you tell someone "I'm from the internet", instead of laughing they just ask "Oh, what part?"

Speaking of xkcd, here are some excerpts from the About Page that I got a kick out of* (out of which I got a kick?)

What does XKCD stand for?

It's not actually an acronym. It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation -- a treasured and carefully-guarded point in the space of four-character strings.

Is xkcd translated?

Translating humor is often difficult between groups that speak the same language, let alone totally different cultures. So it's inherently a hard problem. However, a reader does translate xkcd strips into Spanish, which can be found at es.xkcd.com.

How do I write "xkcd"? There's nothing in Strunk and White about this.

For those of us pedantic enough to want a rule, here it is: The preferred form is "xkcd", all lower-case. In formal contexts where a lowercase word shouldn't start a sentence, "XKCD" is an okay alternative. "Xkcd" is frowned upon.

2 comments:

Heather said...

I actually like the updated version: http://xkcd.com/802/

Laura Payne said...

Thanks Heather. The updated one is much more accurate. I hadn't seen it before.

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