On June 10, 2009 at 10:22AM in Stratford-on-Avon in the U.K. a new English word was born.
“No one said nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ a baby” to me, so at precisely the same time in Los Angeles, 2:22AM, I was asleep with not even a duffel bag at bedside in case I needed to rush to the natal ward, catch this neologism as it exited the womb, and sack out in the neonate department afterward. I like to think of myself as a lexicographical Mother Teresa; all words are my children no matter who sired them, the more humble their beginnings, the better.
I hate it when parents give their newborn a name that will become fodder for schoolyard cruelty so imagine my chagrin when this new word was declared, “Web 2.0.”
Was that the sound of Samuel Johnson choking in his grave?
The birth announcement was sent out by a media consulting company in Texas. (Why the time of birth was noted in Stratford-on-Avon remains a mystery). And immediately lexicographers consulted their slang dictionaries of the vulgar tongue and reached for the most appropriate oath they could come up with. For, you see, declaring a word, any word, as the millionth word in English, is a fool’s game. The New York Times covered the story recently and recorded the vicious execrations of a few experts.
“Bushwa, fraud, hokum,” said Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley.
Grant Barrett, a lexicographer and co-founder of the online dictionary Wordnik.com, said: “It’s a sham. It’s a hoax. It’s fake. It’s not real.”
Whoa, throw some water on these guys, they need to cool down. Anger management may be in order.
The OED lists 600,000 words with 1,000 new words added each year. Merriam-Webster’s claims 1,000,000 plus or minus 250,000. I have trouble coming up with a thousand words for this space, and am now consumed with guilt because with 600,000-1,000,000 words to chose from all I can come up with is what you’re reading now.
But wait. Call the verbal OB/GYN. I’ve had this one gestating within for almost nine months and I’m about to break word-water. I’ve taken lexicon Lamaze classes, and have my breathing under control.
But yikes, it’s crowning! Look out world, here it comes:
“Hemolexiphiliac.” One who bleeds words, a condition whose only cure is a daily transfusion via reading books.
My luck, I’ll be hooked up to a copy of Jacqueline Susann’s, Every Night, Josephine, the story of a poodle, a pseudonovelist, and puddles of love. Poison in the blood; call the toxicologist. Drain my arteries and refill with embalming fluid. That book is death; a million words, give or take a few, and not a decent one in the lot.
I’m feeling faint, Web 2.woozy.