ThoughtCast® » Words@Work

Has the Global Economic Crisis – or GEC – got us?

Jenny — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:52:35 +0000

Eat Lunch or Be Lunch

Calling for Acronyms!
Here’s mine to start off –
The “GEC“ — it sounds like a mix between guck, yuck, ick and eck. Like the noise you make in the back of your throat when you’re about to regurgitate, or cough up spume. And isn’t that what we’re doing now? Out comes the excess… Oh, and what about the Global Economic Meltdown, or “GEM” – with a hard g? Sounds chewy, gooey and horror-movie-ish. The GEM is on the move…
And ThoughtCast wants YOU to contribute an acronym as well!
Might as well get – if not a free lunch, then a free laugh out of all of this…

So, here’s Dale Hobson’s contribution:
“How about GRR–for Great Republican Rip-off or Global Resources Rape.
I don’t want to spit or hurl; I want to bite.” Ouch!
And here’s William’s:
I always thought “The GBR” captured it well. “The Great Brain Robbery”
Leighton says: WODD — world order down the drain
While Lee Goldberg has come up with:
Global Economic Meltdown Offers Rude Awakening – GEMORA – !!!
And Anthea Raymond gives GEC two thumbs up:
“GEC works for me quite possibly because of the gagging sound evoked.
We’re in for a long slow retch on this one.”

Meanwhile, Valeria Villarroel suggested Governmental Fail (GF?)
and Barton George followed up with Worldwide Total Fail: WTF
while Helen Tan writes: “GEC sounds like the cracking of an egg!”
Hence: Giant Egg Cracking

Have we covered the whole alphabet yet?
Oh, and that GEC-monster gracing this post?
It’s a sculpture by Juan Cabana, called Stranded…
Perhaps he hatched from Helen Tan’s egg!

For more acronyms –

Me Says:

How about Heny Paulson’s “SHIT” – Structured Housing Investment Trust (i.e the bank bailout)

patricia gras Says:

GEM
global economic mess
It’s a gem because it will teach us how to live differently PERHAPS

Jenny Says:

Okay, here’s an acronym from “anonymous” —
“How ’bout the GMVWUC…for the Global Misplaced Values Wake-Up Call. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”
Well, I like it anyway. Try pronouncing it! Sounds like a mash-up of US car companies — or should I say a pile-up?…

bill Says:

A couple of groaners…
We have A.D.D., American Deficit Disorder
Some of us have O.C.D., Obliterated Countries Disorder

Griefer, Google Cooking and other Neologisms

Jenny — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 04:17:00 +0000

Note: This piece was broadcast on Word of Mouth on New Hampshire Public Radio and on WCVE in Richmond VA.

been there - done that

Today’s online world is in overdrive. Think of it as a novelty factory – spewing out new ideas, products, and neologisms – new words, or phrases. Take the word blog, for example, or broadband. These are now old-hat neologisms even my mother would recognize. But neologisms can also be existing words that acquire new meaning, like the term spam. Or the word friend – that’s now a verb! People friend each other on social networking sites like Facebook all the time!
So what better place to look for neologisms than at a conference devoted to the “Future of the Internet”, held by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
Click here: to listen to Esther Dyson, Jimmy Wales, Tim Wu and Judith Donath (4 minutes). Or check out this 1 minute video with MIT Media Lab assoc. professor and Harvard fellow Judith Donath…

To friend or not to friend: Judith Donath on online social status

Jenny — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:57:54 +0000

Judith Donath

Have you “friended” someone recently? Have you ever? Sooner or later, we’ll all start to friend, or be friended, if we are to inhabit the jolly online world of social networking. MIT Media Lab’s Judith Donath explains….

Click here: (4:17 minutes)

Ethan Zuckerman’s homage to homophily

Jenny — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:40:57 +0000

Ethan Zuckerman (credit: Esther Dyson)

Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices waxes lyrical on the term homophily, which isn’t actually a web word, but it’s a phenomenon playing itself out on the Internet. Click here for clarification!

(2:20 minutes)

And to listen to a discussion with Ethan Zuckerman on the Forum Network, click here!

More Neologisms with TPM’s Josh Marshall

Jenny — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:34:19 +0000

Josh Marshall (credit: NY Times)

Here are a few more thoughts on new words gleaned from life online — gathered at a Berkman Center conference on The Future of the Internet!

Joshua Micah Marshall, who founded the influential site Talking Points Memo discusses the term “blogger”, a now old neologism that may have outgrown its usefulness, at least to him!

Click here: (2:30 minutes) to listen. And let us know if you agree!

And here on this YouTube video, Josh Marshall tells Jenny Attiyeh how he came up with the name “Talking Points Memo”…

Plus:

Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices waxes lyrical on the term homophily.
MIT Media Lab’s Judith Donath explains the jolly online world of social networking!

Tim Wu’s neologism: Network neutrality!

Jenny — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:34:18 +0000

The term network neutrality was the brainchild of Tim Wu of Columbia Law School. So what does this term mean, and what power does it have?

Click here: (2:23 minutes)

Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia – the word!

Jenny — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:27:05 +0000

Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales, the founder of the free online encylopedia Wikipedia, shares his thoughts on the power of one incredibly successful neologism – that amazing name! Wikipedia is a name he’s “stuck with” — in a good way, of course!
Click here: to listen. (2:13 minutes) And hear what else “Jimbo” had to say that day, to the Chronicle of Higher Education!

In Search of Neologisms with Esther Dyson

Jenny — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:22:52 +0000

Esther Dyson

Neologisms are defined as new words or phrases (or new uses of a word or phrase). And what better place to find them than at a gathering of netizens (itself a neologism) steeped in the new world of the “net”. The Berkman Center for Internet and Society, at Harvard, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and ThoughtCast was there, fishing for novelty…
The Catch:
Internet guru Esther Dyson came up with an expression I’d never heard before… Have you? Here’s a clue: what does Google have to do with your refrigerator??!!
Click here: (1 minute) to find out!
But wait, there’s more!

Jimmy Wales, the founder of the free online encylopedia Wikipedia, shares his thoughts on the power of one incredibly successful neologism – that amazing name!

The term network neutrality was the brainchild of Tim Wu of Columbia Law School. So what does this term mean, and what power does it have?

The Origins of “Rock”

Jenny — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 02:13:59 +0000

Note: this piece was broadcast on NJN (New Jersey Public Radio) and on WMUB, an NPR station in Oxford, Ohio.

Why Not?

What does the word rock mean? Simple enough question. But how did the term originate? Where — and why? These questions are bit more difficult to answer!

Tune in for a quick romp through the origins of the word — with Berklee College of Music professor Ken Zambello.
Click here: to listen (3:30 minutes).
(And thanks to Pam Scrutton and Planning For Elders for the “Let’s Rock and Roll” illustration!)