Vehicular Vocabulary

I recently came across a new term in the August issue of Detroit's Hour Magazine. The appropriateness of the timing of my newly acquired vocabulary cannot be denied, as I read the article just two days before driving home from northern Michigan after a holiday weekend (Yuck, an extra hour added to the trip). The term I am referring to is "phantom jam"; a traffic jam with no apparent cause -- no accident, no stalled vehicle, no lanes closed for construction.

According to an article on Wired.com, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who are studying the phenomenon in hopes of expunging it, have suggested an additional name for this kind of gridlock - a "jamiton". "It’s a riff on 'soliton,' a term used in math and physics to describe a self-sustaining wave that maintains its shape while moving."

These "phantom jams" or "jamitons" occur when there is even the slightest disturbance in the flow of heavy traffic - a driver unnecessarily touching the brakes, someone tailgating or an idiot talking on the phone and not paying full attention to the road. These minor disruptions to the flow of traffic cause a chain reaction that results in a self-sustaining traffic jam.


Following is a video of MIT's model of the formation of a phantom jam.



As a frequent weekend and vacation expressway traveller, I wholeheartedly support MIT's research efforts and would like to remind drivers not to tailgate, not to talk on the phone, not to unnecessarily use brakes and, most importantly, that the left lane is for passing and slower traffic should keep right.

Let's eradicate these terms from our vocabulary.

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Read more about The Semantics of Slower Traffic.

Check out slowertraffickeepright.com

Breadcrumb (Verb)

I recently drove one of my sons to a new camp in Ohio. We followed the directions to the main road for the camp but decided to look for a restaurant to have some lunch before going to the camp. As we drove, it seemed like we were driving in a circle and the restaurant where we ended up was off of the same express way we had just exited (though we couldn't tell if it was the same exit or not). Being unfamiliar with the area, I couldn't decide if we should assume we had driven in a circle and wing it back to the camp or if we should backtrack. I asked my teenage son what he thought and he responded, "I think we should breadcrumb it." I had never heard the word "breadcrumb" used as a verb and I wondered if he heard it on a television show. He claims that this usage just popped into his head at that moment based upon the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel.

I did a quick web search and came up with the following:


Wiktionary
Verb
Infinitive to breadcrumb
1. (transitive) (cooking) To sprinkle breadcrumbs on to food, normally before cooking.

NetLingo
The nickname for a top navigation menu that uses a string of section names to identify where you are.

For example, when searching for cell phone product reviews on CNET.com, you will see the following "breadcrumbs" just beneath the top level navigation:

> Home > Reviews > Cell Phones and Accessories > All Cell Phones

Likened to the practice of leaving breadcrumbs behind you when you go hiking on a new trail or wandering through the wilderness, these top navigation links help you find your way back to where you started by following them in reverse order.

While the NetLingo definition comes close to my son's definition, I still prefer his version as it has a far broader application.

Breadcrumb:
Verb
Infinitive to breadcrumb
1. (transitive) To retrace one's steps, to backtrack.
Example sentence: To avoid getting lost, we breadcrumbed it.

Thank you JJP

What is a Word Nanny?

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Federal Communications Commission's right to fine television networks for, "the unplanned, fleeting use of a curse word on live television," has been a hot topic in the news this past week. Many news outlets have pointed out the fact that the real issue here is whether or not the FCC policy violates the 1st Amendment. What I want to point out is the compound word used by the Chicago Tribune to describe the FCC's behavior - word nanny.

Following is an excerpt from an article titled "Word Nannies" that appeared on May 2nd's chicagotribune.com:

"A change at the five-member FCC is a more likely resolution. The agency is set for a major overhaul with three new commissioners coming on board. We urge them to avoid being word nannies."

What a great word; and from what I can tell it has not been used prior to this article. A Google search for "word nanny" returns numerous hits about the word "nanny;" a Google search for "word nannies" returns the original Chicago Tribune article, references to the article from other news outlets, and forum discussions about The Supreme Court's decision.

So...what is a word nanny?

If a nanny is a woman whose job is looking after young children, then by extension a word nanny is a woman whose job is looking after the words that young children hear.

When it comes to word forms, we all know that "nanny" is the feminine and "manny" is the masculine, but because FCC commissioners can be male or female, the Chicago Tribune's use of the term "word nanny" is neuter.

New Portmanteau Word Spotted - Greenternship

This is a screen print from craigslist with an ad for a new type of internship (third ad from the top on Wednesday April 22nd).

Recycling for Charities Summer Greenternship

The opened ad specifies that this charity is seeking qualified interns and that "candidates should have an interest/knowledge of green issues and initiatives."

So this is an internship with a charity that is concerned with green initiatives...which gives us a new portmanteau word: green + internship = greenternship.

Top Ten Librarian Retronyms

I just came across a list of retronyms for non-internet librarians from an Information Today contest.

Here are the top ten submissions:

10. Shelf pointer librarian

9. Analog librarian

8. Legacy librarian

7. Librarian unplugged

6. 3x5 librarian

5. Internot librarian
4. Retrobrarian

3. (Insert the name of your supervisor here) librarian

2. Wallenda librarian (flying high without the net)

1. Librarian 1.0

A Missing Futuronym - Key Card

This is a picture of the back of a key card from a recent stay at a ski resort. It is a bit hard to make out but just above the name of the resort is a sentence that reads:







Upon departure please leave keys.



The wording would make much more sense if the futuronym key card was used because the item in the picture is clearly not a set of keys or even one key for that matter - it is a card that is used as a key otherwise known as a key card.

This is a good example of how technology is constantly adding new words in the form of futuromyms (and retronyms) to our lexicon. And in case technology has erased your memory, a set of hotel keys is pictured below.

While the word retronym is fairly well known and found in dictionaries, the word futuronym (or futronym) was just recently coined in the blogosphere and is not well documented yet. A futuronym is defined as the opposite of a retronym. In other words, where a retronym is a word that includes a noun and a modifier that specifies the original meaning of the noun, a futuronym is a word that includes the original noun and a modifier that specifies the technological advancement that caused the need for the retronym.

For example:
original word - guitar
retronym - acoustic guitar
futuronym - electric guitar

New Word, New Day - National Pantsing Day

As I drove my boys to school this morning they informed me that today is National Pantsing Day. National what day? Pantsing is a new word on me so I came home and looked it up. Here is the top definition from Urban Dictionary -

Pantsing: What many high school students will do to fellow classmates if they decide to wear sweatpants. It is far to easy to catch the wearer of the sweatpants off-guard and pull their sweats down. Any other form of clothing on the bottom is not to be messed with.....only sweatpants.
Poor girl decided to wear her sweats today; she's probly going to get......oh, and the pantsing begins.

This definition was posted by Whitney on May 23, 2005.

According to my boys, any pants will do; the pants do not have to be sweatpants. Either way, I learned a new slang word today and I got a good laugh at poor Whitney's spelling errors (probably because it was just too easy).

And by the way, as far as I can tell there is no such thing as National Pantsing Day...it must be something some smarty pants at my boys' school invented.

Obama Accused of Promoting the Genericide of one Compound Word (Blackberry) while Inspiring a new Compound Word (Blackberry President)

Posted Friday, January 23, 2009 5:41 PM on Newsweek.com
Thanks to Obama, BlackBerry Becomes the Next Kleenex

The above headline is comparing Blackberry to Kleenex in the sense that Blackberry is a generic name for the product category of PDA's just like Kleenex is a generic name for the product category of tissues. This process is appropriately called genericide.

I'm not sure that I agree with the writer of the headline because I don't think that Blackberry is in the same league as Kleenex, Band-Aid, Xerox, and the like when it comes to the genericization of product names, though it could be in the near future.

At any rate, I found it interesting that this headline appeared just a week before the current Newseek magazine cover (note the top left corner).



The noun-noun compound word Blackberry President could well be on its way to becoming one of the most-used new words of the year; in fact, there is even a website called blackberrypresident.com. Furthermore, a google search of the word Blackberry President turns up too many results to list including the following cartoon.

Morphemes Make Creative Words

A favorite blog of mine documents unusual and creative words that are found across the web. Even the name of the blog (Wordlustitude) exemplifies creativity with a word. One of the ways new words are created is by combining morphemes in different ways and by adding morphemes to existing words. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language.

Following is a diagram of the different types of morphemes.

A free morpheme is what its name implies - a morpheme that can stand on its own as a word.

A bound morpheme must be attached to another morpheme.

A lexical morpheme is also called a content morpheme and can usually be defined with a synonym.

A grammatical morpheme is defined by its grammatical function and usually does not have a synonym.

A derivational morpheme creates (derives) a new word.

An inflectional morpheme changes the form of a word.

Here are some of my favorite words from Wordlustitude that come from the creative combination and/or addition of morphemes:

buttlickee
dowhateverer
co-doofus
hoo-hoo-ectomy
diaper-tastrophe
buttmunchosaur
sasquatchtastic
slimeballitude

If you can't think of a word for something - create one.

O-phoria - A New Word for a New President

The ubiquitous coverage of Barack Obama's election (including insta-books, quickie documentaries, magazine covers and more) has been dubbed O-phoria by The New York Times columnist, David Brooks. To be sure, many people are euphoric; however, when I look at the word in print I automatically think Oprah.

Fauxtography

Good old Reader's Digest - the October issue brought another fun, new word to my attention and morphology brought the word together - fauxtography. According to RD, fauxtography is the practice of manipulating digital photographs which is made possible by Photoshop and other computer programs. I had previously heard this practice referred to as photoshopping, which makes sense, but the word play involved in fauxtography sure makes it a lot more fun for written communication.

New Oxymorons

Heads up Word Spy. I noticed two new oxymorons in the September 15th Newsweek -

Green McMansion: an environmentally friendly, large, opulent house.

Walking school bus: a group of children walking to school accompanied by at least one adult with set pick-ups for children along the way.

A Word is a Word - or is it?

With all the new words that appear daily (portmanteau or otherwise) have you ever wondered how new words achieve dictionary-inclusion status?

In answer to this question - It is up to the almighty dictionary editors. New words are located by dictionary editors through magazines, newspapers, and various other media including online sources. If a word is found frequently enough in various sources with the same meaning and if the editors think the word has long-term staying power then there is a good chance the word will make it into the dictionary's next update.