New Words to the English Language
1. assitude
Date: January 30, 2001
Context: Rice debate instructor Dan West commenting on a student’s speaking:
"You could tell that she had a lot of assitude. Judges do not appreciate too much assitude."
Meaning: a rude, cocky, possibly hostile disposition with an inclination to forego any social conventions of politeness.
2. blows
Date: February 2, 2001
Context: A student in Hanszen’s old section in conversation with another student:
"I have three exams in two days!"
"That blows!"
Meaning: to be objectionable or to suck (in the slang sense meaning to be inadequate or not favorable)
3. celli
Date: February 9, 2001
Context: A college student talking suggesting to his friends another way of contacting someone. "Let’s just call him on his celli."
Meaning: cellphone or a cellular telephone
4. Neo-Luddite (Neo-Luddism)
Date: February 10, 2001
Context: On the webpage describing people’s views toward technological change:
http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19991018luddites1.asp (The article is for October 18, 1999 but I noticed it on the date assigned above).
"’Neo-Luddism has the potential to allow people to discriminate between that which genuinely benefits society and that which does not,’ says the site's operator, a Yorkshire, England, college student who has taken the name of Ned Ludd. He gives as an example, the ‘necessary technology’ of a cardiac defibrillator as opposed to genetically altered foods, which Neo-Luddites view as a threatening leap into the unknown."
Meaning: a person who is opposed to the rapid technological change or development (in the form of computers and information technology) with a nature to blame technology for social problems.
5. frappuccino
Date: February 15, 2001
Context: A couple of college students heading to get a drink:
"I need something to keep me awake. I could use a frappuccino!"
Meaning: a chilled cappuccino drink that might have various flavorings like chocolate added
6. rave
Date: February 23, 2001
Context: A student describing a party: "Hey are you going to go the rave?"
Meaning: a party that is characterized by loud rock music, a dark atmosphere with laser lights or glow-sticks providing the lighting, and sometimes excessive stimulant drug use.
7. ftp
Date: February 26, 2001
Context: A college students questions how to obtain an electronic document:
"Can I ftp it to my account and just use it from there?"
Meaning: using a File Transfer Protocol program that transfers files along a network often quicker than email
8. swaths
Date: April 10, 2001
Context: A Rice Linguistics professor describing word formation: "There are swaths of words that have been influenced because of cultural contact."
Meaning: a large number, throng
9. ghetto
Date: March 10, 2001
Context: A college student describing a restaurant:
"We could go eat there but it is really ghetto; the floor is dirty, the wall paper is falling off. and there is crack in the window."
Meaning: characteristic of a poor neighborhood, dilapidated, or run-down
10. ebusiness
Date: March 7, 2001
Context: A CNN Headline News reporter describing the latest trend in the stock market:
"The market experienced a boost because of the success of ebusinesses across the country."
Meaning: electronic business; company that sells it goods or provides services over the internet
11. nounify
Date: March 22, 2001
Context: A Rice Linguistics professor describing the purpose of an ending: "The ending helps to nounify the word."
Meaning: make into a noun or turn into a noun
12. crapulence
Date: March 27, 2001
Context: A college student complaining about bureaucracy: "I am so tired of all of this crapulence! Why can’t they just make us fill out waivers instead of banning trucks?"
Meaning: marked by having the quality of excrement (often used figuratively and with the intent to insult) or being nonsensical
13. sexile
Date: March 23, 2001
Context: A college student explaining why he is not currently working in his room: "I would be working but unfortunately my roommate decided to sexile me-- my roommate’s girlfriend had a little to drink."
Meaning: banishment caused by a roommate’ s amorous affairs (not necessarily sexual but definitely physical love).
14. hoochie
Date: April 6, 2001
Context: A college student describing a person who is dressed in a tight fitting, short skirt: "Look at her. She is such a hoochie."
Meaning: a promiscuous person, in the manner of a prostitute, a person deliberately advertising his/her body to get noticed
15. jive
Date: March 17, 2001
Context: A professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics checking to see if his audience was still understanding him: "So the matrix has n eigenvalues. Does that jive?"
Meaning: to fit or to make sense or to be appropriate
16. sparsify
Date: April 5, 2001
Context: A professor wants less numbers and notation in a computer program: "You need to sparsify that matrix."
Meaning: to make sparse
17. foreigny
Date: April 16, 2001
Context: An O-Week coordinator describing how changing a play will affect the audience: "If we do not present it in play form it will make it seem foreigny."
Meaning: a state of being somewhat foreign or quasi distant
18. Tarantino
Date: March 1, 2001
Context: A student describing the film Snatch: "It was Tarintino in a way but somewhat faster."
Meaning: a movie with both witty and slang-filled dialogue, excessive violence, and arranged as a collection of discontinuous scenes that fit together at the end of the movie.
19. reality show
Date: April 20, 2001
Context: A college student describing television preference: "I love reality shows! They are very addictive."
Meaning: a television program that is not scripted and exposes "real" people (not actors) to situations and tapes their responses
20. pop-culture
Date: March 12, 2001
Context: A professor discussing movies and the current trend: "Pop-culture just eats up these crappy movies that have no plot but have a lot of violence in them."
Meaning: the culture that is most popular or prevalent–action movies, pizza, Tommy Hilfiger, and email might all be characteristics of pop-culture.
21. ego-surf
Date: April 4, 2001
Context: A girl describing a professor’s habit of trying to find his name on the internet: "He must spend a lot of time ego-surfing of course with a name like his he must have to weed out a lot."
Meaning: searching for one’s name on the internet to see how many webpages or people have the name.
22. Californication
Date: February 3, 2001
Context: The Red Hot Chili Peppers have a song concerning the Hollywood culture’s treatment of sex with the lyrics:
"Born and raised by those who praise
Control of population everybody’s been there and
I don’t mean on vacation
First born unicorn
Hard core soft porn
Dream of Californication
Dream of Cailfornication"
Meaning: 1. the excessive use of fornication by the movie industry in California for entertainment and its consequent harms 2. The widespread of popularity of California culture
23. techno-savvy
Date: February 26, 2001
Context: A speaker asking for someone to do a webpage: "If any of you are techno-savvy or know someone who is they can do the webpage."
Meaning: skilled at information technology especially computers
24. japanimation
Date: March 7, 2001
Context: At the movie store my friend comes across a section of cartoon movies from Asia: "How do you feel about a nice bit of japanimation?"
Meaning: animated movies produced in Asia that often contain fight scenes, have a lot of action, and have characters with large eyes drawn in a unique style; animé movies (resemble video games)
25. putz
Date: March 2, 2001
Context: When asked what he was going to do for spring break my friend responded: "I am just going to putz around with this and that."
Meaning: play around, keep busy but accomplish nothing