Hello fellow bloggers.

I thought I would make an appearance. Hope this brings a little amusement to you all.

I had posted on Jan 6, 2006 about dust-laden words that no one uses. Well, recently again, on one of my multitude of newsletters, I received an interesting thing. Thanks to Macmillan online for minutes of amusement. We start off with new words to use in the dating arena. This is the link if you are interested

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/resourcenew.htm


The first word ‘smirting’. I thought what ARE we teaching the second language learners. What on earth? I have never even heard this word. I was once again in my state of, “Wow, there are a lot of people that are going to be speaking English sure, but no one will understand them (or maybe it will only be me out in left field) because …well ‘smirt’?” My prescriptivism was kicking in…hmmm scary.
So, I calmed down a little and continued to read. That was my emotional brain talking. ;0) This is the meaning. It can also be used as a verb and as a person such as- He is a smirter.

smirting- noun - socialising in a romantic way whilst smoking outside a place such as a bar, restaurant, etc., where smoking is prohibited or illegal

As I type this, my spell check just corrected it as ‘smarter’. What has the world come to when spell check has better grammar than people?! Ok well, most people.

Then there is a word like “polyamorous”, kicking back to Greek/ Latin, but adding all sorts of meaning to the word to weigh it down. I continued to read and found a well-defined and interesting description of these words.

Another I found really interesting and possibly useful was ‘rendition’. You are saying to yourself, “So, that word is used often, nothing strange about that.” Well, this is the definition and context it is used in:

rendition also renditioning - noun -the practice of capturing a criminal suspect and handing them over to the authorities of a different country for interrogation or imprisonment

I guess this came about after the 9/11 disaster and this is an actual practice of sending suspected terrorists home to their countries for questioning.

So, what have I learned from this. Well, I think I will have a job for a really long time because those poor students, who are using those electronic dictionaries at every turn, are going to be up the creek without a paddle. I already hear that English vocabulary is so difficult because there are so many meanings attached to one word. You must know the context it is used in.

What else have I learned? Well, once again I am not as open minded as I thought. I need to get back to those linguistic classes that look at language as a growing changing entity. I guess I have just been focusing too much on one thing and needed to be shaken up a little. I may just keep looking through this selection of words and learn what I can.
I had been perusing the Ebonics slang and other slang sites so I will just add this to the list.

Maybe one day one of our fellow bloggers (I know new term too) will create a blook from all the writings.