June 15, 2004

monkeyfishing n. to catch fish by charging water with an electric current then netting the stunned or panicked fish which rise to the surface.

Um, this is by way of introducing Grant Barrett's Double-Tongued Word Wrester, "a growing dictionary of new and old words."

Double-Tongued Word Wrester records words as they enter and leave the English language. It focuses upon slang, jargon, and other niche categories which include new, foreign, hybrid, archaic, obsolete, and rare words. Special attention is paid to the lending and borrowing of words between the various Englishes and other languages, even where a word is not a fully naturalized citizen in its new language.
Try it, you'll like it!
posted by languagehat 20 years ago
  • Verwaltungsvereinfachungsmassnahmen : “Writing Campaigns Encouraging Bureaucrats To Come In From The Fog”: They’ve assigned the effort to rid their writing of fogginess a name. It is Verwaltungsvereinfachungsmassnahmen—that is, “simplified administrative procedures.” love it. This is great, languagehat.
  • This is terrible, terrible. I'm going to lose hours here. A word I want to (re-)enter the English language is gebéorscipe — Old English, "beer-ship" — for drinking party. Ship of beer, ship of fools.
  • Languagehat, I'm glad you're one of the Monkeys. This is wonderful!
  • I just wish he'd tell that vincent guy on the Pepys blog to shut the hell up.
  • Hmm. Wonder how the word monkey is associated with fishing this way? As in, "it's so easy, a monkey could do it"?
  • "wad v to crash (a motorcycle)" as in "...that way we can have another really expensive honda to wad next year" Fascinating examples of emerging slanguage.
  • Hey, I like that Vincent guy! He's been everywhere and seen everything (I think he's in his 70s) and often has extremely interesting things to say. His style is... peculiar, but think of him as the Pepys equivalent of thomcatspike. (Full disclosure: he comments frequently on LH as dungbeattle [no, I don't know why] and we carry on an occasional e-mail correspondence in the course of which he sends me useful links.)
  • A-ha! Dungbeattle revealed!
  • 'wet n. a recreational drug made of marijuana, PCP, and formaldehyde.' What a waste of pot!
  • He's in his 70s? Oh well, I shall henceforth read his epistle with more respect. Thanks, Languageman.
  • Alphabet-hat.. whatever your name is. Should be 'Mr Ubiquitous'. How the hell do you find time to post everywhere you do? How do I? What kind of losers are we? Happy ones. /raises glass
  • My name is Legion. *drains glass, smashes it on prow of ship, sails off into sunset*