Wednesday, August 10, 2005
The Vocabularians Part 2
Another bunch of new words has just been printed in the latest issue of the Oxford Dictionary of English - but I have seen few examples capable of bailing me out of one of my creative tundras when I keyboard-headbut and ceiling-gaze my hopeful way towards the clincher word. The one that does it.
The list seems to be a dictionary corner load of compounds drawn from lazy street slang corruptions and portmanteaus the likes of which far from being useful are virtually unusable (though smog started off as one of those so what do I know?) 'Hinglish' is, unsuprisingly - a language blend of English and Hindu. 'Chugger', a pairing of charity and mugger. This is a new word to describe those irritants who accost you in the street despite your world class endeavours at eye contact avoidance and tactical walk-swerve, hide-dash, manouvres. On reflection I quite like that one - chugger is like bugger as well as mugger, and sounds a bit like fugger which in turn sounds not unlike fucker, all of which makes them, - chuggers, sound unpleasant.
'Sing-jay'. A DJ who sings as well as, I don't know, plays, mixes, or scratches. A hopeless addition, destined to fall into non-use due to it sounding uncool. 'Lush' has been around so long now that it would be anything but lush to use it as it is newly defined, as something 'good.' Lush though was coined, well, about a minute ago compared with at least one of the entries so old it might have appeared in DrJohnson's Dictionary: Rosy Lee :" A preferred term Beftowed by Coftermongers and others of low fortune found within our noble city to defcribe through the device of rhyme the popular beverage Tea might have been its first definition. Or in the case of 'Ruby Murray' the singer and 'Quite Contrary' TV star whose name became synonymous with curry and could easily have been found between the covers of a 1958 edition of the Daily Sketch newspaper.
And all those other nouns, handy for some perhaps but not me. The 'Lollywoods' (films made in Lahore) - yep I know, who cares? 'Labrapoodle' a word to describe a purposefully crossed breed of dog, bred to enable blind people who suffer from hair allergies to have guide dogs that are both obedient and woolly (and snappy-yappy-biters as well, though I doubt this was considered as a desirable by product.
And so it goes on. There are some coinages that I do like though, and will use. Soon.
The list seems to be a dictionary corner load of compounds drawn from lazy street slang corruptions and portmanteaus the likes of which far from being useful are virtually unusable (though smog started off as one of those so what do I know?) 'Hinglish' is, unsuprisingly - a language blend of English and Hindu. 'Chugger', a pairing of charity and mugger. This is a new word to describe those irritants who accost you in the street despite your world class endeavours at eye contact avoidance and tactical walk-swerve, hide-dash, manouvres. On reflection I quite like that one - chugger is like bugger as well as mugger, and sounds a bit like fugger which in turn sounds not unlike fucker, all of which makes them, - chuggers, sound unpleasant.
'Sing-jay'. A DJ who sings as well as, I don't know, plays, mixes, or scratches. A hopeless addition, destined to fall into non-use due to it sounding uncool. 'Lush' has been around so long now that it would be anything but lush to use it as it is newly defined, as something 'good.' Lush though was coined, well, about a minute ago compared with at least one of the entries so old it might have appeared in DrJohnson's Dictionary: Rosy Lee :" A preferred term Beftowed by Coftermongers and others of low fortune found within our noble city to defcribe through the device of rhyme the popular beverage Tea might have been its first definition. Or in the case of 'Ruby Murray' the singer and 'Quite Contrary' TV star whose name became synonymous with curry and could easily have been found between the covers of a 1958 edition of the Daily Sketch newspaper.
And all those other nouns, handy for some perhaps but not me. The 'Lollywoods' (films made in Lahore) - yep I know, who cares? 'Labrapoodle' a word to describe a purposefully crossed breed of dog, bred to enable blind people who suffer from hair allergies to have guide dogs that are both obedient and woolly (and snappy-yappy-biters as well, though I doubt this was considered as a desirable by product.
And so it goes on. There are some coinages that I do like though, and will use. Soon.
// posted by garroo @ 3:17 pm 
