In June, Grant attended the biennial meeting of the Dictionary Society of North America. One of the highlights was the New Word Open Mic where anybody was invited to step up to the microphone and submit a new word they had coined or found. Grant was one of the judges, and shares some of the new words submitted in this bonus podcast from A Way with Words.
Listen here to find out if “to Paris” has legs or if something you have is “googletudinous”:
Download the MP3 here (15.2 MB).
Special thanks to Charles Hodgson of Podictionary.com for recording the audio and agreeing to let us use it on the show.
Web sites mentioned in the podcast:
Dictionary Society of North America
Charles Hodgson’s Podictionary.com and his book Carnal Knowledge
Erin McKean’s Dictionary Evangelist
Cambridge University Press dictionaries
American Heritage Dictionary at Bartleby.com
Copy Editor newsletter
Carl Burnett’s Ski Dictionary
Amy Reynaldo’s Diary of a Crossword Fiend
Mark Peter’s Wordlustitude
Really nice mix of voices in this episode. It made me want to hear more of a Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me word quiz with audience members. Keep up the good work!
Listening now…
Regarding “finix”, what do you think people were searching for? Could it be “phoenix”? Or a mistyped entry for another “real” word?
On the basis of sound, I thought it was a verb, “to finick”, that is, to act finicky. And what is the origin of “finicky”?
I agree, Nate. Major props to Grant and to Charles Hodgson of Podictionary for making this special edition possible!
Here is my new word:
NEONYM - A word that is new and has the potential to be accepted into the English language.
Sam, how does that differ from neologism?
Other than having fewer syllables, I would have to say it means the same thing.
I do like it, Sam. Nice and nasal, like “houyhnhnm.”
Here’s a coupla neonyms I came up with recently (unless they already exist and I didn’t know about them):
Biblionym/bibliologism (or byblio-?) - a word or phrase that has its origins and/or etymological roots in a literary work, e.g. nerd, herculean, etc. I was only able to catch a few minutes of last Sunday’s AWWW, but weren’t they talking about that very thing? I didn’t hear the whole thing so maybe they said what those kinds of words are called, but I missed it. They mentioned grok and I can’t remember what else.
And it’s biblical cousin, Biblonym (capitalization optional). Don’t want to suggest Biblologism, though, cuz that don’t got no euphonics.) E.g. jeremiad, eleventh-hour, doubting Thomas, holier-than-thou, a fly in the ointment, and countless others.