The Lexicographer's Rules

Recent interesting catchwords from the Double-Tongued Dictionary are:

dry powder n. a (venture capital) company’s unspent investment funds.

lobbycon v. to attend the site of a professional conference, without enrolling or paying entrance fees, for the purpose of meeting with attendees in the site’s public spaces. From lobby + conference.

familismo n. a sense of family among Latinos. Appears primarily to be used in English-language contexts and rarely in Spanish texts.

According to this Russian index (see the original Russian), my weblog is the number one autonomous blog on the Internet, according to the number of readers. That means a blog on its own domain not using a blog hosting service like Blogspot or Live Journal.

But, as noted here, Yandex rating is generally one big joke (see the original Russian version.) Yes, I would say so. Clearly, they’re not looking at, oh, say Boing Boing?

Recent interesting catchwords from Double-Tongued Dictionary are:

fong kong n. in South Africa and Zimbabwe, a product from Asia, usually believed to be shoddy and cheap. The expression seems to be used both as a count and noncount noun. A similar term is zhing zhong.

scaracter n. an actor at a Halloween-themed amusement park or haunted house. From scare + ch(ar)acter.

bolt-on n. a business or product line acquired by a company in lieu of the company developing that product or expertise for itself. Also as an adjective.

Recent interesting catchwords in the Double-Tongued Dictionary are:

prairie whale: n. a hog. So-called because its fat can be used for things usually done with ambergris.

full Ginsburg: n. being a guest on all five major American Sunday morning television shows in a single day. Named after William Ginsburg, Monica Lewinsky’s lawyer, who, on February 1, 1998, was the first person know to have done it.

halitophobia: n. having the delusion that you have bad breath.

Recent interesting catchwords on the Double-Tongued Dictionary are:

tulies: n. the boondocks or the middle of nowhere. Out in the tules/tules means “out in the boondocks” or “far away.” Another spelling is “tules,” plural form of “tule,” pronounced TOO-lee, which is a type of Californian bulrush and the origin of the term. The expression is most common in the American southwest, including California.

poli-fluential: n. a person who is actively involved in influencing others about their political points of view. This brand-new term is untested and joins the oodles of words coined by political marketers and analysts, most which fail to catch on. You can read the report from which it comes here.

generation Q: n. a generation of young people who are idealistic and active in pursuing a better world, but who do not participate in the related political or social discourse that helps form popular opinion or influence elections. The “Q” comes from “quiet.” Coined by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in what appears to be a typical columnist’s ploy of launching a new term to see if it will stick and thereby measuring one’s influence.

skittles room: n. at the venue of a chess tournament, an area or room where players can play informally, either for fun or to hustle each other for money. A commenter remarks that he’s known this term for 40 years, which makes it perfect catchword fodder: it does not appear in any of a dozen mainstream dictionaries that I checked.