13 January 2009

Words that don't exist, but should

There is an ever-expanding range of new things and concepts in the world, and in order to talk about them, we need to create words for them. English has usually done this either by using old words with new meanings (what would a Victorian have made of "using a mouse to surf the net", even though every word would have seemed familiar?), or by inventing new words in various ways (that same Victorian would not have recognized "laser" or "transhumanist" or even "homophobia"). Both practices continue today; many of us know that not every shipper deals with UPS and that not every cougar's bite need be feared, and recent coinages I like include "hamashole" (Hamas member) by blogger "Aussie Dave" of Israellycool, and "deathist" (opponent of life-extension technology), though I'm not sure who came up with that one.

It recently occurred to me that I have a lot of terms of my own which I find myself using in my own head, or in corresponding with people who know me well, that don't really exist (yet) but probably should. Here are a few:

celltard: a person gabbing annoyingly on a cell phone in public

cusstard: a person who enjoys or justifies swearing

foamer: a ranting, raving, foaming-at-the-mouth religious nut

fuzzbait: a car driving even faster than your own along the same road, which unwittingly protects you against being pulled over for speeding because it's that car and not your own that any patrol car in the area will go after

hoarsemen of the apocalypse: hysterical members of the media and punditocracy who endlessly bellow gloom and doom about the economy

idollator: a person whose main sexual partner is a sex doll or robot rather than an actual human

Obamatardosphere: that portion of the internet consisting of sites run or dominated by Obama cultists

patroll: the act of diligently policing one's blog to remove hostile or negative comments

PITA: an annoying person or situation (acronym of "pain in the [hindquarters]")

weavetard: a driver who constantly moves from lane to lane trying to overtake the rest of the traffic, usually gaining about two whole car lengths by the next stop sign

6 Comments:

Blogger concerned citizen said...

I have one of my own:
anonyasses anonymous internet commenters that use anonymity as a cover for rudeness.

13 January, 2009 07:23  
Blogger Prash said...

My boss was called PITA once by somebody during an official lunch ! As his name was "pierre" I thought he (ausstralian) was saying "pierre" as "peter" and he repeated until I asked him what PITA means and he explained to me and I laughed out louder...

13 January, 2009 07:38  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

CC -- Good one! Certainly a word is needed for that.

Prash -- I had no idea that PITA was already in use in that sense, but I suppose it's not surprising.

13 January, 2009 08:21  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about "pita bred" - one raised to be an annoying person or situation (acronym of "pain in the [hindquarters] and changed spelling of bread?)

14 January, 2009 08:50  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

bratworst: larval form of the PITA bred.....

14 January, 2009 09:16  
Blogger Quantum_Flux said...

Good list of psuedo-names.

27 January, 2009 22:50  

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