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Neologisms

These are words I am attempting to popularize. Most derive from elsewhere.

diswant
Stronger than "not wanting" something -- the state of being displeased if you received something. (From an anonymous colleague).

hu
The gender neutral of "he/she" -- short for "human". Think about it! he/she/hu!

syntropy
(Jargon) Synergistic entropy. Also popularized by the late Buckminster Fuller. Unfortunately this wonderful concept may be impossible within Information Theory. Our scientists are still confirming that.

cunt
After much consultation among the interested parties, society has determined that the word "cunt" is now okay. The verdict cites the following motivations: (1) to defang the word--much like the word "queer" has already been defanged; (2) to make a pairing with the word "cock"--now cock and cunt can stand side-by-side in their gender-equitable glory;

wixpert
Portmanteau of "wiki" and "expert"--a wixpert is someone whose knowledge of a subject is derived entirely from its Wikipedia page. From Aza Raskin .

deceed
The opposite of exceed. To go below something. i.e. "The value of x will never deceed y."

anecdata
The plural form of the word "anecdote".

psychoceramics
The study of crackpots. From Cosma Shalizi .

pyrophile
One who delights in fire in a non-crazy way. As distinguished from pyromania. From Ivan Van Norman .

awarenessing
Exerting conscious effort to be aware. From Jon Kabat-Zinn

What do you call a group of homosexuals? A pride of homosexuals.

What do you call a group of philosophers? A din of philosophers.

And the flipside, words that should not be popularized.

antergy/lessergy
The opposite of synergy --where the whole is LESS than the sum of the parts. An english word already exists for this, "redundancy".

non-decreasing
As in "The function is non-decreasing with n". The proper term for this should simply be "increasing". And to say it only goes up, then say "strictly increasing".

(last modified 2013-01-03)       [Login]
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