Wordspy
http://www.wordspy.com/index.asp
By A.M. Dellamonica
The practice of lexpionage is the mission of Wordspy, an endlessly fun and always intriguing Web site that seeks out new words and their definitions. As Internet culture spawns phenomena like "photolurking," "celeblogs" and "bitcoms," as global climate change triggers "hyper-evolution" in squirrels and weed species, Wordspy is out on the cutting edge of language, tracking the shifts in English vocabulary and keeping savvy logophiles up to date.  Wordspy is a tidy, straightforward series of articles, with archives going back to 1996, a list of its most popular 100 words (this rating is based on page views) and a handy index of subject tags for visitors looking to catch up on newly coined words in a specific subject area, be it medicine, electronics, politics or culture. Wordspy also posts a daily quote from notable philosophers, academics, poets and writers, from Douglas Adams and J.R.R. Tolkien to Margaret Atwood and Oscar Wilde
The only common thread among the words on this site is their newness. Some are chilling (check out "dark biology"), others improbable ("hurry sickness"), others simply weird (the stock market term "dead cat bounce"). For SF writers, Wordspy is simultaneously a gold mine of futuristic-sounding story ideas and a keen snapshot of life in the present moment. |
