Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Save the Words!

Twitter makes me happy, mostly for it's ability to spread the internet around a little more easily.  My lunch time is often spent clicking on links and reading about random things.  I recently found this fun site via a fellow tweeter:




http://www.savethewords.org/


From the standpoint of a nerd who loves vocab, and from someone who works in advertising, this site is awesome.  It's made by Oxford Dictionary, and represents a campaign to save little-known words from falling out of existence (with the bonus of selling a few dictionaries, no doubt).  The site is visually appealing, filled with snarky comments and tounge in cheek use-it-in-a-sentence explantions.


According to the site, "today, 90% of everything we write is communicated by only 7,000 words."  How sad is that fact?  I can believe it, though.  I find myself dumbed down by relying on IM and text to communicate.  My work emails are usually coherent, but my personal emails tend to be rambling, sixth-grade-level drivel.  I hereby promise to try very diligently to use intelligent vocabulary in my daily conversations, both verbally and in print.  However, I make no promises on reducing my use of unnecessary exclamation marks!




The site asks you to adopt a word and promise to use it in conversation.  Some prove to be a little more feasible than others...


I chose this one:


Starrify: to decorate with stars (a natural fit, given my penchant for using *s at every opportunity)


Other contenders:
mancation: (a vacation amongst man friends, in the vein of staycation?  Nope.)  Mutilation.


siagonology: study of jaw-bones (ahh, this will be useful in daily conversation, indeed)


blateration: blabber, chatter (much more fun to say when gossiping)


pamphagous: eating or consuming everything (sounds like a typical day for me)


sinapistic: consisting of mustard (highly relevant to one's lunchtime conversations)


Which word would you adopt??


*Case in point: my spell check rejected every "lost" word above.  Even the computers are in on it!*

5 comments:

  1. What an incredible site! I try to shake up my vocab, but truly...it's likely 7,000 words, and I'll admit that lately I've felt uninspired with my own vocab!

    But, now that I'm injecting a word that used soley for mustard references, I know it's really going to jazz things up! :)

    Blateration? Genius!

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  2. I think I'd pick "saggittipotent" (having great ability in archery) since out of all classes (of the few that he signed up for on his first semester of college- way back when), he chose *archery.

    Hence, he is much more saggittipotent in the sport than I.

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  3. I love this idea! I really love whipping out the fifty cent words every once in a while, and I am always on the look out for more!

    PS... starrify totally sounds like a made-up word ;)

    LB

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  4. I totally love this! My coworker gets the word of the day, but this is totally better. I have to share it with her.

    Thanks for the link.

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  5. Oh man, what a cool site! I have to forward this on to my mother; she is such a 'wordie'. I just made that up. I'm pretty sure that's not an actual word. Maybe I should head to that site quickly to find something more appropriate!

    ReplyDelete

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