Nada Word

Grosseries

2012-01-11T13:25:00.001-05:00

For some reason the past week has been SNL-themed. It all began simply enough as I read Tina Fey's Bossypants on a cross-country flight. Like everything else Tina has ever done, I'm a fan of this. There were more than a few times when I couldn't stop giggling to myself uncontrollably, causing the little old lady next to me to glance at my uncomfortably. And despite not having WiFi on the flight, I made sure to make a mental note of a great made-up word: Grosseries, which Fey created to describe the array of gross transformations she claims happened to her body as she has aged. For the record, Tina, I think you look great. And I don't just say that because you kind of look like my wife, but also a little bit because you kind of look like my wife. I feel like that should be allowed.

After my red-eye from SF to PHL landed, I went home for a 3-hour nap before our Megabus to NYC. We were heading up to see Katie's cousin Stevie perform in the Improvised Shakespeare Company, which is exactly what it sounds like: improv in Elizabethan English, set to the themes and styles of the Bard's great plays. Stevie's incredibly talented and was just called up to the main stage at Second City in Chicago starting in April. That said, I was curious to see how Shakespearean improv could be pulled off. The answer: hilariously. Our audience suggestion was "Ye Merry Wives of Stepford" and the plot involved bored housewives in the suburbs of London, a King of England trying to kill off his wife and make it look like an accident, and an inept prince from France attempting to prove himself to his father the king by impregnating as many women of England as possible. You had to be there, and I encourage you to be there sometime soon. Check out their website to see when they're coming to a Globe near you.

After the show all 12 Sassorossis & entourage went out to eat at a nearby Italian restaurant, Verso (recommended), while Stevie performed the second set of the night. By the time we finished dinner and went back to pick up Stevie for more revelry, it was quarter-to-midnight. The parents called it a night and went back to the hotel, while the kids went out for a drink with Stevie and the rest of the cast.

Considering how tired I was at noon, I was pretty proud of myself for going as strong as I was at midnight. One hour in Manhattan (and one rye Manhattan) later, I was running on empty. Despite having a great time, I was getting to the point of nonlinear exhaustion where every 5 minutes you feel twice as tired. Finally I made some semi-communicative series of grunts and gestures that told Katie it was time for me to sleep, and it would be better if that didn't occur in a bar. The cousins said our goodbyes to the cast and other new friends, and starting hailing a cab.

At this point Stevie gets a text that he has 5 invites to the SNL afterparty. He knows a couple folks in the cast from Second City, the veritable SNL training ground. We pile into a cab and head to a steakhouse-turned-club in midtown, where there is a throng of people at the door barraging a woman with a clipboard and a dude with an earpiece. Waiting in line to get to the gatekeeper, we see Fred Armisen obliging a few fans with a photo. We get to the door and Stevie explains to the much-nicer-than-expected woman that Katie and I are on Paul Brittain's list and Stevie, his girlfriend Kate, and cousin Krissy are on Abby Elliott's. "Wait here," clipboard woman says, "the Aisenbergs are on the list, but I don't have you three." Earpiece man disappears into the club to track down Abby Elliott to see if she can vouch for the rest of our party, when the seas part to let Kristen Wiig walk in. Clipboard lady didn't need to see her ID. A moment later, earpiece man returns, gives us the thumbs up, a smile, and wishes us a good evening as we enter.

We find an open space near the writers' table and Stevie's girlfriend Kate grabs a round of old fashioneds. Having never lived in NY or LA, this is definitely the best celebrity spotting I've ever been a part of. Our encounters in DC were limited to once seeing Al Frankin in Dupont Circle and Katie running over George Stephanopoulos in Georgetown as she used a spin move to avoid a panhandler. But this is in another league. We're a few feet away from Seth Myers, who's enjoying the rest of his dinner with a couple guests, and Jason Sudeikis and Kenan Thompson are a few feet away at the bar. We play a game I made up called "first one to spot Charles Barkley wins," which turns out to be a pretty easy game in any context, but especially surrounded by skinny sub-6-foot white guys. Sir Charles is enormous, seems to be having a great time, and is a good sport about posing for pictures. Bobby Moynihan keeps walking by and politely/sheepishly saying "excuse me" as if he's the one who doesn't belong here, not us. Stevie goes finds his friend, Paul Brittain, who comes over and chats with us for a while. Super nice guy, happy to indulge we fans with the questions I'm sure he gets all the time about the inner workings of the show.

Around 3AM we're all pretty tired and it doesn't appear that we're going to be invited to the after-afterparty, so we say out goodbyes and hit the road. When we get outside some of the people whose names are not on the list see us and scoff "see! you're letting anyone in." We're not just anyone, good sir. I happen to be a guy who knows a guy who is the guy. And some day, knock on wood, Stevie Waltien will probably be the guy, making us all one step closer to this magical world of fame and showbiz we just had a glimpse into. And when we're on Stevie Waltien's list to get in to the after party, we'll be able to act like we belong, because we've already done this before.

Googlenope

2011-10-25T21:56:00.000-04:00

If there's a cardinal rule of blogging, it's to avoid long gaps between posts. If there's a second rule, it's not to apologize for or draw attention to doing so. My bad on both accounts.

It's been a great 4 months though. Working at Microsoft was great, I met some outstanding people, and went to more weddings this summer than Larry King has had marriages. One thing I learned is that life inside a big tech company looks a lot different than it appears in the tech media. In fact, I've been inspired to start another blog especially dedicated to the subject (name TBD; send me your suggestions.) But fear not (ha): I'll continue to update this one as often as fake words of note cross my proverbial desk.

Appropriately enough, today's update has to do with a tech company I once had nothing but admiration for. Google search made the internet more accessible than ever before, and all but killed off the dark ages of not being able to look up the answer to anything in seconds. Gmail was the first address I had after college, and my love affair grew to include not only an Android phone but a Google Voice number. But the best product the company ever made, in my opinion, was a little something called Google Reader.

Google Reader made it possible to read the best of the internet every single day, which is an almost impossible task. As soon as you think you've read the end of the internet, there's a whole new internet the very next day. But Google Reader made it possible; I felt like I had my own army of curators combing through the internet and feeding me the best of the best.

But the company that does no evil has done something terrible: they are killing the social features of GReader in support of Google+. I, along with many of Reader's devoted fans, are furious.

My gradual migration off of Google products started this summer when using Bing and IE9 at work, and it culminated upon my receiving a Windows Phone and moving over to Hotmail. I promise to write more about my thoughts on the various differences between these products and their Google equivalents in my new blog, but suffice it to say that I was clinging on to Google Reader as the last Google product I just couldn't do without. Now, I don't even feel like I've left Google as much as Google has left me.

Google, as a way of saying goodbye*, I dedicate this post to you: a Googlenope is a word invented by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post that means "a word or phrase that when typed into a Google search gives no results." Check out Gene's article for an amusing list of phrases that. at the time of his writing, had never been uttered anywhere on the internet.

Google, I can't tell you how disappointed I am about the demise of Google Reader. Such a thing of beauty shouldn't be collateral damage in your war against Facebook (i.e., the Google+ that was invented 6 years ago.) But if you bring back GReader, drop me a line.

*my last remaining Google product in use is Google Voice; it's unclear if I can port my phone number out of it (oh, and it still gives me free text messaging)
*the irony that this blog will still be maintained on Blogger (soon to be re-branded Google Blogs) is not lost on me
*I still think it's important to sample everything on the internet menu; I'll still be back from time to time to see what the 'Plex is cooking

Magnited

2011-06-12T19:06:00.000-04:00

The is a great voicemail rant from someone kicked out of a movie theatre for using their cell phone.

And just to prove how fast the internet moves, you can already buy a Magnited We Stand shirt.

Bulligerent

2011-05-19T09:17:00.000-04:00

On one hand, you have to give Mr. Ochocinco credit for a good bull pun. But on the other hand, that's not what belligerent means.

Twitter / @Chad Ochocinco: @nflcommish if I ride a bull ...

Innit

2011-05-10T08:34:00.000-04:00

Scrabble is a game I love and should be better at than I am. My wife once beat me by 100 points (295-195) and the scorecard hung on our refrigerator for years.

But now that we live in the smartphone era I've been able to play much more often via Words With Friends and WordFeud. Granted, mobile phone Scrabble cheating poses a problem, but I think the concern is well worth the joy. My handle is "jonnyais" if anyone wants to play.

Much to my dismay, however, I saw in the Google Reader feed this morning that "Scrabble goes street as slang terms like 'innit' added to dictionary." I think this is pretty annoying. Everyone knows that the Scrabble dictionary comprises a subset of valid words and part of the game is knowing which words count and which don't. While this blog doesn't object to the inclusion of additional words in the actual dictionary, it would prefer to see the Scrabble dictionary remain relatively unchanged over time. Certainly if "Google" hasn't made the cut yet we're a long way from "innit" becoming part of the common parlance.

Disrespectchup

2011-04-26T08:03:00.000-04:00

Jack, thanks for forwarding this along. I can assure you that I'll never disrespectchup anything that comes from your grill.

Words That Should Be Words: Disrespectchup | Serious Eats:
Here's a new coinage we found via Reddit.

Disrespectchup: (dis-ri-ˈspeke-chəp) noun. To overuse and abuse ketchup, particularly on dishes beyond fries, hash browns, burgers, and eggs. When my wife took my lovingly grilled lime pork tenderloin and added ketchup, it was a disrespectchup

Rubbage

2011-04-18T22:21:00.001-04:00

Diligent reader Zach raises an excellent question about how to treat words that used to exist, but are now obsolete. He offers into evidence the following data points.

First piece of evidence: dictionary

RUBBAGE:
Century Dictionary (1 definition)
–noun

An obsolete or dialectal form of rubbish.

GNU Webster's 1913 (1 definition)
–noun

Rubbish.

Second piece of evidence: usage

“It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to BELIEVE that rubbage.”
— The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“You have got pallets, Dumpsters, all kinds of trash, all kinds of rubbage, glass, all sorts of things.”
— CNN Transcript Jun 27, 2007

And going above and beyond, a third piece of evidence: a really old book about language usage:

How to make sense of all this?

First of all, thanks for the email, Zach. My apologies for the delay in responding, but it's a lot to take in.

I happen to agree that obsolete words are just that: obsolete. We have new and/or improved words that have taken their places and those should be used instead. Clearly "rubbish" beat out "rubbage" in a competitive environment for the hearts and minds of English language speakers. Twain was writing in a different era and CNN's record of fake wordery is suspect (see post on "Monumentous"). I'd say it's OK to use "rubbage" for ironic effect, but it's important that all involved know that the word, in fact, is rubbish.

Postscript: I also discovered this gem at a new site I discovered, unwords.com, in the research for this post. Love it.

Fabulosity

2011-03-25T13:56:00.002-04:00

Before I got to the chorus, I couldn't imagine this video getting any better. Then he dropped the word "fabulosity" in there and brought the house down. Well done, Zachary.

Honorable Fabulosity mention goes to:

Fabulosity: What it is and how to get it by Kimora Lee Simmons, former model and ex-wife of f Phat Farm founder Russell Simmons

Jihady

2011-03-03T20:49:00.004-05:00

Aasif, in my book your superpower is making new words appear magically before us. And the creation of hilarity. Well done.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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Verbage

2011-03-01T23:32:00.004-05:00

Friend of the blog Lee raises an excellent question:

"What are you feelings on the word verbage? It's nada word... but i like it, and it's ubiquitous. I can't decide. You are the expert. To use or not to use.."

Great question, Lee. You flatter me, and it's always appreciated.

"Verbage" is a garbage word that PowerPoint editors everywhere love to throw around because they think it sounds fancier than "copy, language, or wording." Like many words with readily available substitutes, I suspect this one was also made up to make PowerPoint editing sound more glamorous than it is.

However misspelled, "Verbiage" is, in fact, an actual word meaning:

1: a profusion of words usually of little or obscure content
2: manner of expressing oneself in words : diction

Ironically, when people tend to use the second definition, I think they unwittingly are using the first.

Batmans

2011-02-15T19:36:00.001-05:00

[@FakeAPStyleBook]

Meltier

2011-02-05T13:11:00.003-05:00

My buddy Mark shared this heat-gun manual on reader. Creative and hilarious.

[via Boing Boing]

hiybbprqag

2011-02-04T09:04:00.006-05:00

There's been some interesting back-and-forth between tech industry giants Microsoft and Google this week. Google first accused Microsoft (Bing) of copying search results, and Microsoft fired back saying that Google had been copying some of their ideas for some time. The argument moved to the twitters, which is always a great way to elevate the discussion.

Fascinating to watch, but since there's a nontrivial change that I end up workin

g for one of these two over the summer, I'm not going to pass judgement. I'll leave that for Mr. Colbert:

Google, Microsoft: love you both. Call me.

Ecotistical

2011-01-02T18:00:00.002-05:00

The New Yorker published its annual "Top Ten Would-Be Words Submitted to Merriam-Webster," and I think Ecotistical is my favorite. What's yours?

porch (verb): to spend time on a porch
dogfood (verb): to use a product or technology within the company that produces it
ecotistical (adjective): feeling self-important due to conservationist ecological practices
Enggalog (noun): a combination of English and Tagalog or Spiddish (noun) : a combination of Spanish and Yiddish
BMW (abbreviation): beautiful mature woman
doga (noun): yoga for or with dogs
auxer (noun): a call center agent who is allowed to take his or her break
snirt (noun): a mix of snow and dirt
fext (verb): to pretend to send a text message
sidegrade (verb): to replace (something) with something that is neither better nor worse

Bleisure

2010-12-15T09:28:00.002-05:00

It's exam time, which means I'm procrastinating by digging through the starred items in my inbox that I haven't gotten to in months. About 60% of the starred items in my inbox come from my mom, the last person with whom I communicate regularly who hasn't mastered the "share in google reader" method. If only Gmail had a "send to google reader" feature I'd be able to clear up some inbox clutter. You hear that, Google? I'm thinking of product enhancements.

Since I'm hoping to work in technology over the summer, I haven't been showing up to these employer information sessions in the serious suits donned by my consulting- and banking-bound classmates. While more liberating in many ways, dressing down does pose the problem of appearing professional-yet-casual, which is actually something a few tech companies have explicitly mentioned that they look for.

Naturally, this article from WSJ.com buried in my starred items caught my eye, both for its commentary on casual/professional attire, and its use of a new word. Enjoy.

Amid the male leggings, cropped stomach-baring tops and sandals worn with socks in last month's Milan and Paris men's fashion shows, one trend attempted to answer how men should dress up without looking too dressy in an increasingly dress-down world.
'Bleisure': Past and Present
View Slideshow
Hermes
It's a concept some designers and retailers are dubbing "bleisure," used by the travel industry during the economic meltdown to describe the cost-saving merging of business and leisure travel. Others have used the term to describe how electronic devices are keeping people constantly connected to their business even during leisure time.
For fashion, it means a dressy but relaxed style that could take a man from work to after-work without looking too business or too casual. If that sounds somewhat vague, it is. The look materialized on the runways of Louis Vuitton during the men's shows in January. In June it showed up in such brands as Bottega Veneta, Dolce & Gabbana and Ermenegildo Zegna, in the form of white linen-blend suits, silk seersucker sportcoats and silk double-breasted blazers.
These ensembles are sometimes worn without ties and even with T-shirts and sandals. The suit jackets and sportcoats are extremely lightweight, often as light as cotton shirts.
The style is reminiscent of the "casual" and "sporty" looks donned by the likes of Fred Astaire, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Cary Grant when they weren't in full suit and tie.
Bleisure runs the risk of being a dubious trend, with unemployment still high and the economy still fragile. Given the troubled economic times, some fashion experts were encouraging men to dress more formally, whether to try to find a job after being laid off or to keep the job they are fortunate enough to still have.
But Eric Jennings, men's fashion director at Saks Fifth Avenue, says that right now bleisure is "how the American man wants to know how to dress—like, how do you dress business casual. For most of our customers, the workplace is not as dressy. They're not wearing suits Monday through Friday. They're professionals looking for how to dress professionally and casually," with the casual part not looking sloppy.
Mr. Jennings said he read about the concept of bleisure and decided to use it to describe the dressy-but-relaxed looks he saw while at the fashion shows in Europe, which presented the spring 2011 collections.
He concedes that "bleisure" is not the most elegant word one could use to describe a style. "There was not a great reception to it [from his higher-ups] to be honest," he says. "But for me, it clearly describes what we're looking at."

His other choice was, he says, worse: "professual," a blending of professional and casual.

Homer Sez

2010-11-30T13:53:00.003-05:00

via Eye on Springfield

Increasement

2010-09-17T12:29:00.003-04:00

[source: NY Eater. h/t: Jack]

Sportical

2010-09-11T13:34:00.004-04:00

We went to dinner this weekend with a couple of our new friends here in Philly at a Turkish BYO place called the S&H Kebab House, which I highly recommend. I forget exactly how, but at some point the word "sportical" came up (as in, "My sister was always playing sports, but I was just never very sportical.") For the record, I think all involved knew this wasn't a word at the time, but that sure didn't prevent me from making a note to look it up later. And while not a word, a quick Google search will show you that there's actually a brand of rifle called the Sportical, which I don't recommend as much as the Kebabs.

Shankapotomus

2010-08-11T15:50:00.002-04:00

I keep forgetting that not everyone who reads this blog knows me personally, except for when every once in a while I get an email out of the blue with a word suggestion, comment, or complaint from someone who couldn't bug me in person. I fully encourage this (and frankly am amazed and flattered whenever it occurs) and I will try to be better about interjecting a little more context in future posts. When I started the blog over a year ago I was working for a big consulting company (i.e., Fake Word Factory) and was a little worried that coworkers would find me picking on them over the interwebs, so I kept the posts as anonymous as possible. Since then I went on to run my own small technology company and am back now to being a student, so I feel a little more at liberty to provide fuller context for the fakewordery I encounter.

All of which is prelude to today's fake word, which we all likely heard first during last year's Superbowl. I was reminded of this glorious word during a lecture I attended yesterday here at Wharton, where I'll be getting my MBA and just started preterm. The lecture itself was called the Paradoxes of Interactive Media taught by Peter Fader. It was a very thought-provoking presentation and one of several key take-aways for me was that to date there have been very few examples of successfully executed viral marketing campaigns. Sure, companies have been able to create YouTube videos with millions of views and maybe even make it onto the Today show if they hit it really big, but they haven't done a very good job of tying those viral campaigns into the rest of their marketing activities.

For example, if you Google the made up word "Shankapotomus" you're not going to be directed to E*TRADE's site. They could have all sorts of additional baby-golfer-with-attitude material on there that could help sell more E*TRADE products and services, but alas the only one trying to sell you anything when you search for "Shankapotomus" is Zazzle.com, which is selling t-shirts. They're leaving a great opportunity on the table, and I think it's a shame to waste such a great viral video. And made-up word.

Refudiate

2010-07-21T08:10:00.005-04:00

Ashamed to say I'm a couple days behind this one, because it's such a gem on many levels. I don't think I can do this better than the Gawker post on the topic I was sent by Unsilent Majority, reposted here in its entirety:

If there's one thing that's wrong with the English language, it's that there just aren't enough words. Luckily for all of us, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin invented a new one this weekend, and then compared herself to Shakespeare.

How did you spend your weekend? Did you invent any new words? Because Sarah Palin did. And that word is: "Refudiate." Here is how to use it in a sentence, via Little Green Footballs:

(Some background: A Muslim group wants to build an Islamic community center in a building about two blocks from the World Trade Center site; it would have a swimming pool and an auditorium in addition to a mosque. A bunch of idiot bigots want to stop them from doing so because [THE PART WHERE I POUND MY HEAD ON THE KEYBOARD REDACTED])

Palin first used the word while appearing on Sean Hannity's Fox News show on July 14 (see above video), where she was attempting to break the world record for run-on sentence length while discussing the NAACP's resolution on the Tea Party and racism. "[Barack and Michelle Obama] have power in their words," she said. "They could refudiate what it is that this group is saying." (What ended up happening was that Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams wrote a racist blog post in response, thereby doing to the resolution the exact opposite of whatever "refudiate" means.)

Feeling emboldened by her successful use of the word on Hannity, Palin whipped it out again in the above Tweet. But she didn't quite have the courage of her convictions, and when various mean professor-types pointed out that "refudiate" is "not an actual word, in any dictionary," she replaced it with "refute":

But, ugh, writing is so hard! That doesn't work so well either, since according to so-called "dictionaries," "refute" means "disprove" or "deny," not "reject" or "refuse." So Palin went back to the drawing board:

Having finally vanquished the forces of Muslim community centers with a coherentbit of 140-character bigotry, Palin decided to respond to her lexicographical critics, using the "Shakespeare made up words too" defense:

Well, that settles it: Sarah Palin is Shakespeare, and if you think "refudiate" is a dumb word that doesn't mean anything new, it is because you are not celebrating the English language, and are probably some kind of Mexican.

(Lexicographical note: As Language Log points out, Palin may not be the first person to use "refudiate"—a science fiction author named John Sladek used it in a story from his book The Lunatics of Terra.)

[Gawker]

Releted

2010-06-25T19:32:00.003-04:00

Some time ago, I was told that I should be watching Better Off Ted, advice I finally took just in time for the show to be canceled. I'm about 5 episodes into the first season, and have to say that I'm sorry there's only one more season awaiting me in the Netflix queue because I think it's a pretty funny show. I'm getting a little concerned that too much of my TV comedy is coming from shows set in the workplace (Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Rec) but I'm hoping my deep bench of workplace humor will set me apart from my soon-to-be MBA classmates still recycling old Office Space jokes.

Anyway, in the Ted episode I just watched, his employee record gets deleted from the system, creating all sorts of panic among his team members and causing him to reapply for his old job in a bureaucratic ballet of brilliance. Upon learning that his record had been deleted, Ted reasonably asks if it could simply be "re-leted." Bravo! But to no avail for Ted, sadly.

I'm going start working this one into my vocabulary, and you should start working Better Off Ted into your Netflix queue.

Deffeminate

2010-05-13T15:40:00.002-04:00

Friend of the blog Nika feels that there's no word similar to "emasculate" for women. Should there be? How would one come to feel deffeminated? Discuss.

First Basemens

2010-05-04T08:03:00.003-04:00

Watching a game on Sunday I heard the broadcaster refer to the batter as one of "best defensive first basemens in the league." I've long given up my campaign to stop the use of "RBIs" as plural (given that the acronym stands for "Runs Batted In," it's already plural) but I'm going to stand my ground on this one.

Embiggen

2010-04-21T10:28:00.004-04:00

Over the years the Simpsons have been a great source of made up words. In fact, there's an entire wiki page dedicated to them.

From "adultivity" (the state of adulthood) to "zuh" (the exclamation used when one cannot comprehend a complex situation or statement) the show has given mankind a treasure trove of neologisms that, while not technically words, have become perfectly cromulent to use in casual parlance.

What's your favorite Simpsonism? I think mine is "glaven!"

Guested

2010-04-19T08:02:00.002-04:00

I was catching up on some GReader (Google Reader for neophytes) this morning and I came across this gem in an article about Ben Roethlisberger

Harry Manion, a partner at Boston law firm Cooley Manion Jones, guested on WEEI-AM’s The Dennis and Callahan Morning Show in Boston this morning and said he was hired to investigate an incident involving Ben Roethlisberger six months ago that was “absolutely identical” to the recent sexual assault allegation by a Georgia woman.

Creative or lazy? I'm guesting the latter. Makes me think of a good old style SAT analogy:

Ben Roethlisberger:Women::Guested:English