In his book WORD SPY: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture Paul McFedries identifies "...new words and phrases that tell us something about our world." He collects "snapshots" of our quickly changing world with words, then adds context and a definition of their meaning. These words are like the gray literature of dictionaries. They are a step above slang because of their use in professional publications or circles, and their pervasiveness in current culture. Despite this they still lack the sanction of a respected dictionary.
The words and phrases McFedrise selects from our spoken and written interactions, provide an interesting gauge of current culture. They represent changes in society by society's need to create a new word to more accurately or succinctly describe either a new concept, or an old concept that previously did not seem to warrant its own word.
The WORD SPY: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture web site contains a Subject Guide, Archives, and an Quotation Section organized by author and quote, and a list that "...shows the top 100 Word Spy words (as measured by page views) from the past seven days (The list below came from December 25, 2007 to January 1, 2008)."
New additions from 2007 include:
| Rank | Previous | Word | Posted On |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2 | vajayjay | January 26, 2007 |
| 6 | 5 | Christmas tree allergy | December 13, 2007 |
| 7 | 7 | intensivist | December 18, 2007 |
| 12 | 11 | Frankenstein veto | December 14, 2007 |
| 14 | 12 | stroller envy | October 25, 2007 |
| 17 | 16 | push present | December 12, 2007 |
| 18 | 20 | lifestreaming | November 6, 2007 |
| 20 | 15 | fixie | December 5, 2007 |
| 21 | 18 | dropout factory | December 6, 2007 |
| 22 | 19 | womenomics | December 11, 2007 |
| 61 | 54 | upcycling | October 11, 2007 |
| 68 | 55 | pack-year | September 13, 2007 |
| 90 | 82 | climate porn | March 2, 2007 |
| 96 | 87 | gorno | June 15, 2007 |
An interesting quote from the site about a current issue.
"Above all, a book is a riverbank for the river of language. Language without the riverbank is only television talk — a free fall, a loose splash, a spill."
—Cynthia Ozick, American novelist, essayist, critic, and playwright, Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Character, 1996.
 | R. Philip Reynolds preynolds@sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy/Religion, Political Science/Geography |
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