Comments on: New Words

By: Johannes from Norway

Johannes from Norway — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:54:03 +0000

A valiant effort, but after reading the legendary Douglas Adams book “The Meaning of Liff” I feel your blog entry was somewhat lacking. Glenging is indeed an action that desperately needs a word, but I feel “Gleng” of “Glenging” isn’t it.

Seeing as it is easy to criticize without contributing, here is my suggestion for the word that best embodies the failed timing of unlocking and opening a car door:

Lonk.

Let`s try it in a sentence; “I can`t believe we lonked again! This time wait until you hear the sound finish itself off!”

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:54:04 +0000

If you’re wondering, the need to volumate is a somewhat recent phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

By: rfs1962

rfs1962 — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:33:53 +0000

So, when you gleng twice in a row — it has happened to me — is that a doppelglenger?

By: Padre

Padre — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:31:03 +0000

I will say up front that I’m a little slow, but I went back to the original “Diloneism” post, and I don’t understand why that word is named after Miguel Dilone. What was his biggest weakness to which he misguidedly attributed his success? Did he think his success was directly attributable to his lack of power, which seems to have been his biggest weakness? If that was his biggest weakness, it seems like the definition of the word would suggest he actually thought something like, “I’m a great hitter because I don’t hit for power, and I believe that so much that I’m going to actively try to not hit for power so I can be an even better hitter.”

I start to follow Joe’s logic in that Dilone thought he was a power hitter and tried to act like a power hitter, when in fact he was the opposite of a power hitter, but I lose it when trying to figure out how Dilone attributed his success to what was actually his biggest weakness.

A little help, please.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:25:06 +0000

Mirageamble. Never been to the Vegas strip, but the pier was a good analogy.

By: Creston

Creston — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:01:39 +0000

And donâ€™t write in and say that I just need to fix the volume settings of my TV or DVD Player

It’s not really that, but DVDs nowadays have their sound designed for home theater systems. Ie, Dolby 5.1 speakers.

If you’re running that over your stereo TV speakers, you’re going to wind up with volume issues because the sound map is designed to be perfect for six speakers, and you only have two. Thus, a sound that was supposed to go to “left rear” at volume average+10db will come out of your stereo speaker at average+10db, and it doesn’t have the spatial differences to make up for it.

It bugs me all the time too, but I ignore it because I’m too cheap to buy a home theater system.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:17:40 +0000

Haven’t seen this posted here yet. Another “sign of the apocalypse”.

http://www.snuggiepubcrawl.com/

By: 3rd Period Points

3rd Period Points — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:09:24 +0000

Volumation is absolutely necessary whenever watching a movie on TCM.

There I sit at 1am, attempting to balance chips and Rotel, all the while risking certain eviction as I reach for my root beer float, thereby leaving the controller temporarily unattended.

A sinister force is at work synchronizing my risky root beer reach with the precise moment when Hepburn (pick one), putting the tease on some lucky guy, suddenly cuts to the blaring horns of Broadway at rush hour. Something will be spilled.

Another tip: Turn the volume down 25% before you switch to The Golf Channel.

By: Heidi in KC

Heidi in KC — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:12:26 +0000

Very entertaining. These words are reminiscent of “sniglets” from the HBO show, Not Nec. the News. Classic!

By: David in NYC

David in NYC — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:49:41 +0000

I have only read the 1st graf so far, and I must say you are being way too hard on yourself, Joe. Yes, Shakespeare may have invented, coined, made up, whatever 1,700 words, but that doesn’t mean that the contributions of all others are meaningless. I mean, Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, but that didn’t make Duane Kuiper’s home run disappear from the record books.

Holding yourself up against Shakespeare is fine for motivational purposes (if you’re going to model yourself after somebody, you may as well start with the best), but it doesn’t diminish the contributions you have already made. Heck, the reason I came to this blog in the first place was a link to it from an article in the NYTimes about “jeterate”; trust me, that word alone cements your contribution to the English language.

And would you really feel that bad being the literary world’s Duane Kuiper to Shakespeare’s Babe Ruth?