Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Technology (Underground) Words of the Year


In its 16th annual 'words of the year' vote, the American Dialect Society voted for their selections of Words of the Year. For these word experts and etymologists, the Word of the Year includes not just words but phrases as well. Words under consideration are not necessarily brand new, but they have to be notable and buzzworthy in the past year, in the manner of Time magazine’s Person of the Year. For example, President Bush's phrase "heck of a job" makes the cut.

This year's word list contains a number of interesting technology derived words which I shall endeavor to include in my daily conversations to the greatest extent possible. The truthiness of this statement is indisputable.

  • This years best new word is "Truthiness" which is the quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. Popularized by Stephen Colbert. Sez colbert “I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart."
  • Podcast: a digital feed containing audio or video files for downloading to a portable MP3 player.
  • Lifehack: to make one’s day-to-day behaviors or activities more efficient. Also as a noun. Lifehacks apply the make-do, can-do, what-will-it-do attitude that originated in computer hacking.
  • Patent troll: a person or business, especially a lawyer, who applies for or owns a patent with no intention of developing the product but with every intention of launching lawsuits against patent infringers.
  • Other interesting words include "pope-squatting", and whizzinator

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