“Choregasm,” “twiticule,” “celebracy,” “martyrmony,” “spamily,” “fidgital,” “bangst”—and, well, “pacifire.”
Are these words plain gibberish or the lexicon of a foreign life-form from an improbably English-speaking planet?
Well, despite the fact that each of those words may just faintly ring a bell, the reassuring news is that they are neither lunatic nor alien. They are just a sample of the catchy neologisms being coined every so often by teen-lit author and
New York Times language columnist Lizzie Skurnick, who recently put all of them together in—well, what did you expect?—a book wordily entitled
That Should Be a Word: A Language Lover’s Guide to Choregasms, Povertunity, Brattling, and 250 Other Much-Needed Terms for the Modern World ((Workman Publishing, 160 pages).
Should such seeming overly self-indulgent wordplays be taken seriously? Well, for lovers of words, puns, sundry witticisms, and what the book’s publishers call “razor-sharp social commentary,” the answer should be a definite “yes”; indeed, many of them are a delight to read in print and to hear spoken for the first time. Ditto for social media denizens and party-goers who’d love tossing around a fancy new coinage or two to liven things up. But not right off for Scrabble players, who’d likely be unable to use them in the foreseeable future, and certainly not for serious lexicographers, who definitely will sit on their haunches for a few years or decades to see if Skurnick’s neologisms—in the same way as “twitter” and “twerking”—will gain tongue-and-keyboard traction strong enough to merit inclusion in English dictionaries.
Read “Brattling After The Pacifire: ‘That Should Be A Word’,” an interview of Lizzie Skurnick by the NPR staff in NPR.com now!ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Lizzie Skurnick is an author, a columnist, and the editor in chief of Lizzie Skurnick Books, an imprint that brings back YA classics for teen-lit fans. She has also written ten books for teens. A contributor to
NPR,
The New York Times Book Review, and many other publications, she is the author of
Shelf Discovery, a memoir of teen reading inspired by her “Fine Lines” column on Jezebel.com.
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*A Skurnick Glossary:
choregasm – “an orgasm achieved while performing a core exercise during a work-out”
twiticule – “to mock someone in 140 characters”
celebracy – “the hyper-vain celebrity circle that abstains from anything of import”
martyrmony – “staying married out of duty”
spamily – “Facebook or Twitter updates about kids”
fidgital – “excessively checking one’s devices”
brattle – “to discuss one’s children at great length”
bangst – “profound financial anxiety of a post-recession society”
pacifire – “the six-month ring of fire afer giving birth to one’s baby”RELATED INTERESTING READINGS:A word for that special moment. In “There Must Be a German Word for That: Language for Writers and Readers,” an article that came out in the June 17, 2015 issue of
TheMillions.com, Edan Lepucki tells about she loves and despises the shorthand and passwords of any enclosed community, how they draw their members closer, how they exclude interlopers.” Nevertheless, she strongly believes that there are a host of other moments in the life of a writer/reader like herself that require their own special words. She has listed 11 such feelings and experiences for which she would like to crowdsource names, such as this one: “The fluttery, lusty buzz you experience buying a book that you cannot wait to read. Similar to the intoxicating, heart-pounding sensation of reading something so good, it’s almost overwhelming. What joy! What a life!”
Read Edan Lepucki’s “There Must Be a German Word for That” in TheMillions.com now!Not a truth but a kind of test. In “Aphorisms as Essays,” an article that came out in the June 24, 2015 issue of
TheSmartSet.com, Eliza Gilbert ponders the etymology and meaning of the word “aphorism.” She argues that an aphorism is an essay in its smallest possible form, “not a truth but a kind of test (an assay), a statement you are meant to run up against to decide if you agree. If you don’t agree, that is not necessarily a failure of the aphorism. The best aphorisms are not the most true but the most undecidable, those worth endlessly testing.”
Read Eliza Gilbert’s “Aphorisms as Essays” in TheSmartSet.com now!FOR EVEN MORE ROLLICKING WORD SURPRISES:Click now to "Here are Arguably the 100 Funniest English Words"
