textonym
n.— «Meg Kingston introduces us to the textonym. That’ll be the set of words generated by a particular sequence of key presses on a mobile phone, when the phone’s software is predicting what word you want. For example, keys 2-2-4-3 can signify ache, acid or cage. Press 7-4-6-6-3-7 for phones, simmer and sinner.» —“Strange but true tales from the world of science” New Scientist Dec. 4, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...