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Neology

29 November, 2011

A Storm with a difference this week, after such a sustained bout of clueing. Here we need to hatch up some new words to identify some familiar customs or quirks of modern society, as listed below. (Treat the game much as the latest Salon challenge, to coin a neologism for that scenario of needing to squeeze your final letters to fit a page, or postcard.)

So read these ‘definitions’ below, for concepts that desperately seek a label, and see if you can’t come to the lexical rescue:

  1. That unnerving feeling when you step on an upward bound escalator that isn’t working? [ESCALATOR]

  2. Putting on a jacket for the first time in a while and finding money in the pocket. [POCKET]

  3. Resenting the time the customer before you is spending with the consultant, despite the likelihood you’ll spend as much time, if not more. [QUEUE]

  4. That weird hoppy-steppy thing we do to avoid someone coming the opposite direction, often mirroring the oncoming pedestrian. [DUET]

  5. The moment you realise your child is literate enough, thus denying you and your partner the recourse of disguising words with spelling. [SPELL]

  6. Forgetting why you entered a room. [HUH]

  7. Wildcard entry: name a familiar notion in dire need of a word, and oblige.

To enter your suggestions, ID each defintion with the [KEYWORD] ending each entry. For example, Stairanoia (Escalator.) Not only will the best seven coinages win praise from the gallery, but I will unveil the seven winners (at least) in a future Wordplay column, and hopefully lend air and light to these newborn terms. So get flexible lexical, and may the best neologist win.

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Text-speak is creeping into Scrabble. Where do you sit?
OBVS I'm fine with it
Entrenched stuff - like LOL and OMG - but no more.
Words With Friends, maybe. Scrabble, no
Let the 'real' dictionaries decide first
Just the handy stuff, like FAQ and EUW
I mean, WTF?! No way
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