I overheard a report on the BBC World Service that used a word I think was invented by marketers, has been over-used and should be erased from human memory.
Or failing that, the OED (assuming it is actually in there to start with).
My idea is that people suggest a word of phrase they find hateful enough to expunge from the language, along with a brief explanation if needed, and others can say why they think the suggestion is insane and the proponent should be incarcerated for the public good, then suggest something of their own that should go.
Standard finish, and in my opinion it shouldn't run past the end of the year at most.
And so it begins...
Stevie - And the word that got my blood boiling?
Artisnal. You find it stuck on everything from beer to African miners. Why not spend a few millionths of a penny and say it properly. "Traditionally brewed beer, hand made by craftsmen". "Grubstake miners digging with picks in the worked-out mine left by a big American conglomerate when the machinery couldn't do more with less".
gil - Yeah, bought some
artisanal potato crisps today, apparently it was because they are in a brown paper bag. Note: these are made and marketed in Spain, so the fiction has spread.
Tuj - It's far too late, but
guesstimate is a useless annoyance worthy of being scourged with fire. If you really think there's a nuance worth coining a new word for (and really, don't 'guess' and 'estimate' cover the field adequately already?) could it not at least have been done in a less ugly, contrived and unpleasant-on-the-ear manner?
Dan - [Stevie, gil] What perfectly captures the sensibility of the word is the fact that it's just "art is anal" with the spaces left out.
blamelewis - [Dan] That certainly gives an interesting edge to the assertion thus encoded in Artisanal Water...
I nominate
moreish, on the grounds that its most annoying feature is that it describes itself.
[Tuj] I think there's utility in guesstimate, though it is overused and has, I think, slid towards being a synonym with either of its two component words which renders it less useful! I think it does - or at least did - capture something of the gap between each of the two words - as it rudely barges "educated guess" aside...
As an aside - would anyone like a game specifically for creating neologisms?
Stevie - [blamelewis] But then, how else can one describe the character of Othello when played by a white actor?
[Dan] There's another 'a' in that word? I've never seen it in print, probably owing to the fact my eyeballs refuse to render it.
The word "Ex" as used by computer sales people in presentations ("Our new Veeblefetzer technology delivers a measured 8 Ex performance over the leading competitor's kit") to trick you into thinking they are saying "times" when they bloody well aren't to judge by the sums on the slide. Dan -
[Stevie] "artisan" made pretentious and an adjective at a stroke by Al. I remember reading an article about a new small, high density optical disk format that ultimately never reached the market. In the comments someone asked, "what will be the speed of this when it comes out?" And someone else replied, "why, 1X of course."
Stevie - [Tuj, blamelewis] Guesstimate, for me, has always said "an estimate based in part on thin air, but thin air arrived at in a knowledgeable way". For others it seems to have a "don't hold me to this" connotation and it is very much overused as a synonym in the USA in the computer business. That's what happens to clever neologisms. They move into the language proper and then get inadvertently re-purposed to whatever the speaker thinks it should mean absent the will to go look it up.
Stevie - [blamelewis] If you start your neologism game I want to coin
Jestimate, which will mean (at first) a low-ball estimate offered in bad faith to get a signature on a contract, or a ridiculously high value thrown onto the table as an invitation to dicker, per IBM.
Stevie - and so Jestimate - an estimate no-one is supposed to take seriously.
Stevie - Someone order a bottle of Artisinal Correction Fluid?
- Audience - *shouts, screams, generally goes wild for Stevie*
This is the end of the line. There is no more.