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
Advice about college essays from the winner of a top prize for children’s literature: Kelly Barnhill encourages teens to write about experiences that are uniquely their own, from a point of view that is theirs and no one else’s. Plus, why do we say...
While compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, lexicographer James Murray exchanged hundreds of letters a week with authors, advisors, and volunteer researchers. A new collection online lets you eavesdrop on discussions about which words should be...