Twictionary
I read an article in The Bookseller about how Collins have decided to add "words" to their dictionary. I say "words" because they're finding them on Twitter. It feels like a bit of a gimmick to me, although I'm not sure what they are looking to achieve from it. I'm fairly dependent on social media and out of the nine words I've only heard of two [three-ish]. Who is using them so much that they have come up as possible new dictionary words?!
So here are the words and their definitions as picked by Collins...
Adorkable - dorky in an adorable way.
Fatberg - a large mass of solid waste, grease etc, clogging a sewage system.
Gaybourhood - gay friendly neighbourhood.
Duckface - the traditional pouting facial expression in selfies.
Felfie - a farmer selfie.
Nomakeupselfie - a selfie of a woman without make-up, posted online to raise awareness for a charity.
Vaguebooking - posting deliberately vague status updates on social media to prompt a response.
Euromaidan - the original pro-Europe protests in Ukraine, named for Maidan Square in Kiev.
Fracktivist - an activist who protests against fracking.
A couple of them I love, but the rest left me speechless [tweetless - speechless on Twitter...? Am I getting the hang of these made up "words"?]
I loved the play on words of fracktivist, but I can't say I've ever seen any fracktivists to talk about.
Euromaidan is utterly obscure, and I really have no other comments past that.
Nomakeupselfie... it's not a word... end of. If we're adding random multi-word hashtags then I'd much rather have the one I tweeted earlier today. #tasteslikegrey - the nondescript flavour of generic value or healthy brand food products.
A felfie? I have never heard of this. The selfie is obviously a standard in the online community, and the shelfie [a portrait of your bookshelf] made an appearance in the book world. But felfie? Have we made farmers a separate part of society now that they can't share the selfie with us?
Fatberg, outside of the waste management business I can't see this really catching on. I think we're quite happy describing it as crap.
Vaguebooking... I quite like... and I know quite a lot of people who do it. But if that's going in then there should be a word for the people who want to know what the person is vaguebooking about but don't want to comment because of the likelyhood of it being taken as an open shoulder to cry on. Or maybe in contrast, detailbooking - someone who puts up a status with too much information in it, usually over two paragraphs long.
We already have a perfectly good word for duckface... poser... why use anything else?
Gaybourhood, such a good word, and I can see estate agents using it when touring places... it fits... and it's a perfect way to find an immaculate area to move into.
I cannot believe that I have been using Twitter for this long and have not come across adorkable... I have seen a lot of adorkable stuff in my time. I may have to go back through a few years worth of internet pictures and comment with "this is soooo adorkable". First stop is the picture of knitted Star Wars characters having a picnic for May The Fourth.
So here are the words and their definitions as picked by Collins...
Adorkable - dorky in an adorable way.
Fatberg - a large mass of solid waste, grease etc, clogging a sewage system.
Gaybourhood - gay friendly neighbourhood.
Duckface - the traditional pouting facial expression in selfies.
Felfie - a farmer selfie.
Nomakeupselfie - a selfie of a woman without make-up, posted online to raise awareness for a charity.
Vaguebooking - posting deliberately vague status updates on social media to prompt a response.
Euromaidan - the original pro-Europe protests in Ukraine, named for Maidan Square in Kiev.
Fracktivist - an activist who protests against fracking.
A couple of them I love, but the rest left me speechless [tweetless - speechless on Twitter...? Am I getting the hang of these made up "words"?]
I loved the play on words of fracktivist, but I can't say I've ever seen any fracktivists to talk about.
Euromaidan is utterly obscure, and I really have no other comments past that.
Nomakeupselfie... it's not a word... end of. If we're adding random multi-word hashtags then I'd much rather have the one I tweeted earlier today. #tasteslikegrey - the nondescript flavour of generic value or healthy brand food products.
A felfie? I have never heard of this. The selfie is obviously a standard in the online community, and the shelfie [a portrait of your bookshelf] made an appearance in the book world. But felfie? Have we made farmers a separate part of society now that they can't share the selfie with us?
Fatberg, outside of the waste management business I can't see this really catching on. I think we're quite happy describing it as crap.
Vaguebooking... I quite like... and I know quite a lot of people who do it. But if that's going in then there should be a word for the people who want to know what the person is vaguebooking about but don't want to comment because of the likelyhood of it being taken as an open shoulder to cry on. Or maybe in contrast, detailbooking - someone who puts up a status with too much information in it, usually over two paragraphs long.
We already have a perfectly good word for duckface... poser... why use anything else?
Gaybourhood, such a good word, and I can see estate agents using it when touring places... it fits... and it's a perfect way to find an immaculate area to move into.
I cannot believe that I have been using Twitter for this long and have not come across adorkable... I have seen a lot of adorkable stuff in my time. I may have to go back through a few years worth of internet pictures and comment with "this is soooo adorkable". First stop is the picture of knitted Star Wars characters having a picnic for May The Fourth.
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