Heigh-ho! It's another newsletter from "A Way with Words," and we've got treats. Climb into our van! There are two minicasts for you, for one thing. What’s the deal with using the two-letter postal code abbreviations...
Twinjury n.— «On May 29th, James Coleman of Bristol smacked his skull on a tree branch while filing updates to the Twitter service (or tweeting) from his Blackberry during a run. His accident spawned a new word: a “Twinjury...
How can the word friend possibly describe both the people you went to school with and the people to whom you are connected through Facebook and MySpace? Are friends on the social sites really friends? Is there a better word to describe someone who...
Facebook degree n.— «The University of Salford is set to offer a MA/PgDip in Social Media—unofficially referred to as the “Facebook Degree.”» —“Salford Uni launches Facebook degree” by Gareth Halfacree bit...
hashtag n.— «What does it mean when somebody puts a number sign before a word in an online post? That’s called a hashtag, for the hash mark preceding the word (right, yet another name for the symbol we also call the number sign and the...
Facebook suicide n.— «I have been cheered recently, though, by the news that an increasing number of users are committing what is known as “Facebook suicide”—erasing their profiles and returning to life in the real world...