gecyberschaft
n.— «Mary Ann Allison of the Allison Group coined “gecyberschaft.” Here’s her idea: sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies described village society before the Industrial Revolution (gemeinschaft) and urban society afterwards (gesellschaft).…So if your unit of community in gemeinschaft was the village, it became “friends and family” in gesellschaft, and it’s now your “primary attention group.” You pay attention to that group (or groups, I’d hope she’d say) and to “groups of purpose”—groups neither bound to a place nor to a particular bureaucracy. In gemeinschaft, your status was ascribed (based on birth); in gesellschaft, it was achieved; and now, in gecyberschaft, it’s assessed. » —“Gecybercshaft” by Susan Crawford Susan Crawford blog (New York City) Jan. 5, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Imagine telling someone how to get to your home, but without using the name of your street, or any other street within ten miles. Could you do it? We take street names for granted, but these words are useful for far more, like applying for a job or...
Patrick in New York City is curious about the term ride or die, which describes a friend, fan, or romantic partner who is devoted to the end. The expression shows up in the mid-1990s in hip hop and the work of Tupac Shakur and The Lox, and often...