Evolving English

11:57am: These are a few of our favorite words
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Jeff Atwood sent me a link to this article, which starts off:

The response from the "vocabularians" was so "ginormous" that the lexicographers let out a "whoot."

"Confuzzled?" You must be a "lingweenie."

The editors of Merriam-Webster dictionaries got more than 3,000 entries when, in a lighthearted moment, they asked visitors to their Web site to submit their favorite words that aren't in the dictionary.

As Jeff noted in his email, the author of the article misspelled "woot," and moreover used it incorrectly -- it's an exclamation, not a noun.

The list of Favorite Words Not in the Dictionary is here. Here are the top five (of ten):

1. ginormous (adj): bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous

2. confuzzled (adj): confused and puzzled at the same time

3. woot (interj): an exclamation of joy or excitement

4. chillax (v): chill out/relax, hang out with friends

5. cognitive displaysia (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you're on the highway.

As for "confuzzled," although the speculation is that it's confused+puzzled, I think we detect here also the influence of that most prolific of neologisticators, Snoop Dogg. :-) For fun, go here to translate Web pages into his, er, idiolect.

12:47pm: Give 'em a rest
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Seth posts "Five Words Brought On By The New Job That The Mrs. Wishes I'd Stop Using", which is effectively a list of vocabulary that's au courant here at Giant World-Famous NW Software Company, Inc (a.k.a. "Ginrmous Software, Inc.", perhaps, har-har):

1. Architect, as a verb
   
2. Take-away(s), that do not involve food
   
3. Pivot, when not referring to sports or things mechanical (“I pivot on the small and mid-market.”)
   
4. Enterprise, when describing a business
   
5. Message, as a verb

He admits he was "inspired by" 5ives, which has this entry:

Five words Madeline would just as soon I stopped using for a while

1. orthogonal
   
2. notional
   
3. sciolist
   
4. functionality
   
5. janky