- Paperback: 436 pages
- Publisher: Broadway Books (A Division of Bantam Doubleday Del; 1 edition (Feb 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 076791466X
- ISBN-13: 978-0767914666
- Product Dimensions: 14 x 2.3 x 21.6 cm
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
146,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7 in Books > Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauri > English (Specific Aspects)
- #26 in Books > Reference > Language > Slang & Jargon
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Language wears many hats, but its most important job is to help us name or describe what's in the world. Words define us, our actions, even our existence. And just when you think that you have all the words you need, you discover new ones, hear new uses for old ones or see them mutate right before your eyes--a neologism is born. Those neologisms are actually one of the best ways of keeping tabs on the way our world and culture are changing. One of the people who's been keeping tabs is Paul McFedries, the president of Logophilia Limited ("logophilia" is Greek for "the love of words"). His scorecard is "Word Spy," a daily newsletter that has been reporting from the neological frontier since 1998 and that has more than 100,000 visitors a month and more than 12 million page views. In "Word Spy," McFedries demonstrates how new words both reflect and illuminate not only the subcultures that coin them but also the larger culture in which these groups exist. Neologisms give us insight into the way things are even as they act as linguistic harbingers of what's to come. Each chapter of "Word Spy" is a cultural snapshot, a slice of the zeitgeist that focuses on a specific idea or sociological phenomenon, with an emphasis on the words and phrases that it has generated. These snapshots cover various aspects of modern life, including relationships, business, technology, war, aging, multiculturalism, and even fast food, all the while introducing us to hybrid words: If your kids can't seem to get away from their computers, they may be addicted to "fritterware" (time-wasting game software). If you're a new mother with a passion for petitioning, you may be a "lactivist" (breast-feeding activist). Andif you keep finding yourself staying way later at the office than you ever imagined, you may be suffering from "presenteeism." "Word Spy" is an exciting and informative travelogue through the evolving landscape of our language and, consequently, the cultures and subcultures that continually mold and shape not just the language but all of us who speak it.
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3 reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Modern Times: McJobs, dot-bombs and cell yell
7 Mar 2004
Format:Paperback
After nine years of hosting one of the most popular websites on neologisms - words which have entered our vocabularies, but not yet our dictionaries -- Paul McFedries has written a tourist's guide to modern society using new words as signposts.
What better indication is there of what is important to us than the new words we create? We live in a world that is more stressed ("road rage", "postal"), older ("boomeritis", "silver ceiling"), and self-consciously materialistic ("metrosexual", "McMansion"). We are also a generation which has incorporated such words of war and destruction as "weapons-grade" into our everyday vocabulary. No wonder some of us are "downsizing", moving "off-the-grid" and reading "comfort books".
Paul McFedries is a self-proclaimed "neologophiliac". What he really loves, like H L Mencken, is: "the biology of language, as opposed to its paleantology". Best of all, he is able to express that "irrational exhuberance" in language that is funny and light.
There are regular additions to McFedries' collection of new words on http://www.wordspy.com/ .
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Tracking the evolution of language, with wit and flair
20 Jan 2008
Format:Paperback
For anyone interested in the evolution of language, in particular, with an interest in tracking new words as they enter into the language, Paul McFedries' Wordspy site is an indispensable resource:
[...]
This "book from the site" is hilarious, informative, and entertaining. I highly recommend it.
* multishirking : doing two or more non--work-related tasks at once (e.g. surfing the net while making a personal phone call)
* lactivist : an activist who promotes breastfeeding over use of infant formula
* floordrobe (noun): A pile of discarded clothes on the floor of a person's room.
*carbage (noun): the accumulated garbage, papers, and other assorted detritus that litters one's car after a road trip.
My favorite part was McFedries's discussion of various prefixes (cyber, info, net, e-, techno, eco, bio, Franken, Mc, spokes, meta-,uber) and suffixes (gate, ware, -free, -holic, -ista, meister, a-palooza, -erati, -tainment, -zilla).
A terrifically entertaining book.
[...]
This "book from the site" is hilarious, informative, and entertaining. I highly recommend it.
* multishirking : doing two or more non--work-related tasks at once (e.g. surfing the net while making a personal phone call)
* lactivist : an activist who promotes breastfeeding over use of infant formula
* floordrobe (noun): A pile of discarded clothes on the floor of a person's room.
*carbage (noun): the accumulated garbage, papers, and other assorted detritus that litters one's car after a road trip.
My favorite part was McFedries's discussion of various prefixes (cyber, info, net, e-, techno, eco, bio, Franken, Mc, spokes, meta-,uber) and suffixes (gate, ware, -free, -holic, -ista, meister, a-palooza, -erati, -tainment, -zilla).
A terrifically entertaining book.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Great lingui-porn -- not your father's dictionary!
1 Nov 2005
Format:Paperback
This nifty little volume is proof that the English language is not only alive, it's kicking butt and taking names. Language junkies are familiar with the author's several dozen books and probably his website and maillist, too (for which he slips in a couple of plugs, but that's okay). What he's interesting in here is the invention (or the organic rise, perhaps) of new words by all parts of society, from teen slang that mostly lasts two weeks to techie terms that have rooted themselves firmly in the wider culture, like "dot-com" or the verb "to google." He avoids stunt words (deliberate cleverness by some writer) and nonce words (which appear only once and die immediately). None of his examples existed before c.1980, and all have established a track record by appearing in a variety of public media. (He's aware of Sniglets, incidently, but points out that not one of those introduced by Rich Hall has actually entered the language.) Some new words are so obvious and so apt once you've heard them, you can't believe no one ever thought of them before. (He describes S. J. Perelman's delight when a mechanic told him his car had been "totaled.") The chapters are organized by source or context -- modern angst, modern politics and war, activism of all flavors, political correctness (itself an apt and sneering recent invention), advertising, the Internet revolution, pop psychology, baby-boom-ism, privacy and security (not to forget 9/11, now an overused shorthand), and even "Dilbert." He gives examples of usage from the media, too, some of which are a hoot. Still, there are gaps in the language for which no word has yet appeared, like a reasonable term for each other by adults who regularly go on dates ("Boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are a bit silly when you're over forty). This book is a great time-sink (that's in here, too), both fun and informative.
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