Word of the day: Wiiitis

Back in the early 1990s, a US doctor identified a medical condition among the video-game-playing community called Nintendinitis. This is the thumb soreness caused by too much controller button-bashing, and I'm sure many Engine Room readers can relate.

Now gamers are suffering a new condition: Wiiitis (pronounced 'wee-EYE-tis', I presume). This has been identified by a Boston doctor called Dr Bonis who gave himself a form of tennis elbow through hours of playing simulated tennis on his Nintendo Wii games console.

Fortunately, the treatment for acute Wiiitis is simple: "ibuprofen for one week, as well as complete abstinence from playing Wii video games", according to the doc.

(Incidentally, I wonder if there is a medical name for the red weals in the centre of the palm many gamers gave themselves rotating a controller thumbstick in games such as Mario Party? And on a personal level, I once suffered from 'Sensible Fingers' - my digits cramped playing too much Sensible Soccer on my PC keyboard...)

Thanks to Sarah for bringing this to our attention!

Word of the day: smirting

Today's word is something that people in England are going to be a lot more familiar with come July 1, and which is already a common phenomenon in the rest of the British Isles and in certain other parts of the globe. Yes, it's smirting.

Smirting is a portmanteau word (another one!), a combination of smoking and flirting, and refers to the practice of smokers flirting outside public places where smoking is banned, such as pubs and restaurants.

According to Wikipedia, the term is thought to have originated in the Republic of Ireland some time after the public places smoking ban came into effect there in March 2004. An article the following year in the Observer suggests "having a quick drag has replaced speed dating as the best way to spice up your love life".

England, get ready to smirt!

Slang: hench

Recently I've come across the current youth slang word 'hench'. It's an adjective meaning 'well-built' or 'muscular' (used to describe men only!). Sadly I haven't been able to find much about the origins of the word except for a few suggestions on the web that that it derives from "black English". Can anyone help here?

Much more rarely, I've also come across 'hench' used to mean 'mate', but I think this is a more recent development. A colleague suggested that 'hench' may be related to 'henchman', meaning "a faithful follower or political supporter, especially one prepared to engage in dishonest practices" (OED).

I'm not convinced by that argument - although it is interesting that 'henchman' is from Old English 'hengest', or male horse, plus 'man' (obviously), and may originally have meant 'horse attendant'.

If I were to choose someone to look after my horse, I'd probably pick someone who was a) well-built and b) a mate, so maybe there is a connection after all...

Word of the day: rumpsprung

JD has been picking some technically interesting words of the day; this one simply made me smile. I came across rumpsprung while looking up another word; the OED defines it as "(adj) informal (of furniture) worn and in poor condition".

Clever, isn't it?

Word of the day: hobophobia

Looking through the list of phobias I linked to in a previous post, I was surprised and amused to see that the fear of tramps or beggars is given as 'hobophobia'.

But I was also sceptical. The word 'phobia' is from Latin via Greek, and most words ending in '-phobia' also have their roots in the classical languages, whereas 'hobo' almost certainly does not - its origins are uncertain but it seems to date from the 19th century. As a result 'hobophobia' seemed to me to be a most unlikely word – after all, we say 'arachnophobia' not 'spider phobia'.

So I decided to Google it. The results suggested that 'hobophobia' is indeed widely accepted as the name for a fear of tramps or beggars (or 'bums' if you prefer).

In my search I also came across a pseudo-scientific site promising to offer a cure to sufferers of hobophobia. I found the whole site amusing but let me quote you just a little:

Your fear of bums or beggars can result in the following symptoms: breathlessness, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, feeling sick, shaking, heart palpitations, inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of dying, becoming mad or losing control, a sensation of detachment from reality or a full blown anxiety attack.

You are not the only one to suffer from hobophobia. Most sufferers are surprised to learn that they are far from alone in this surprisingly common, although often unspoken, phobia.

Hobophobia is an intense fear of something that poses little or no actual danger. While adults with hobophobia realize that these fears are irrational, they often find that facing, or even thinking about facing, the feared situation brings on a panic attack or severe anxiety.

More nuances

While subbing a news story with deadline fast approaching I came across the following: "The judge was concerned to ensure no unfair advantage had been gained." A simple enough sentence, nothing wrong there.

Normally copy flows into and out of my short-term memory (and as JD would be only too happy to confirm, my memory's awful at the best of times) but a couple of paragraphs later it was still niggling away at me. When in doubt, check it out.

Sure enough, the OED confirmed that ensure means "make sure that something will occur". The judge had no intention of ensuring anything at all; that wasn't his job. What he was doing was checking, or confirming.

Yes, I felt a smug for a second, until I reflected on how many similar nuances must pass me by during a frantic pressday, despite every effort to ensure they don't.

Word of the day: webinar

Those of you who are internet-savvy will doubtless be familiar with the word 'webinar'. However I've chosen it as word of the day because it is new enough not to appear in many dictionaries, Google has just invited me to attend one, and I like the sound of it. So there.

'Webinar' is a portmanteau word, so it is made up of the sounds and meanings of two other words - in this case 'web' and 'seminar'. As you might expect, a webinar is a type of internet conference, which may be highly interactive or may be more like a presentation.

Another internet portmanteau I am sure you are familiar with is 'blog', a contraction of 'weblog' – which of course is a blend of 'web' and log'. It's interesting that my edition of the OED lists 'weblog' but not 'blog'. Dictionary writers must have a hard time with all these web words...

Disbenefit

In some recent copy I came across the word 'disbenefit' for the first time. It sounded strange to me - my first instinct was to replace it with 'disadvantage' - but the OED had no problem with it, and Googling it displayed tens of thousands of results, so I let it stand.

Admittedly, as an exclusively British English word, 'disbenefit' may also sound strange to American ears, but that gives an Englishman such as myself no excuse.

My discovery of 'disbenefit' has made me wonder how I could go for so long without coming across such a relatively common word - and consequently, what other common words I am unaware of. Has anybody else had a similar experience?

Word of the day: pogonotrophy

Pogonotrophy – too little-used make it into the Concise OED but a fabulous word that means 'beard-growing', or 'the cultivation of a beard'.

Apus, for example, is an expert in the art – or is it science? – of pogonotrophy. I assume that makes him a pogonotrophist.

Why not read about this and other pogo- words?

Word of the day: bloke

I assume that most of you are familiar with the word 'bloke' (informal British English for 'man'), but you might not know where it comes from. I didn't until yesterday.

I was doing some background research for a Daily Mail-style gypsy-bashing story – we're not the most PC of publications – when I read on Wikipedia that the word 'bloke' comes from the language Shelta.

What's Shelta? "An ancient secret language used by Irish and Welsh tinkers and gypsies, based on altered Irish or Gaelic words," according to the OED, which dates 'bloke' to the 19th century. You might know Shelta as Pavee, or The Cant. Parts of the Irish Traveller community (gypsies if you like) still speak it.

Some more digging shows that the term 'bloke' (or 'bloak', as it was sometimes spelled) was even once popular in America. This may or may not help the next time your American friends laugh at you for using funny words...

Showing off with words

As part of our job JD and I have regular recourse to the dictionary, and while checking spellings and meanings we sometime discover obscure words for simple things. Here are a few examples that we found amusing; why not try them out on family and friends?

Absquatulate: "leave abruptly". Eg (possibly during a heated argument): "If I were you'd I'd absquatulate before I lose my temper."
Adumbrate: "give a general idea". Eg (possibly in reply to a tough question): "I have no idea, but I could adumbrate for you."
Adventitious: "happening according to chance". Eg (possibly when accused of breaking an expensive vase): "I do assure you it was entirely adventitious."
Aleatoric: "random". Eg (possibly when accused of dealing cards from the bottom of the pack): "My choice of four aces was completely aleotoric."

Are these words genuine? That, I assure you, is apodictic*; watch this space for more show-off words.

*Apodictic: "beyond dispute".

Word of the day: diarise

Further to JD's mention of ruggedise (ugh!), today a writer came with "diarise", meaning to note a date in a diary. Fortunately those nice people who compile the Oxford English Dictionary confirm that diary is a noun which has, thus far at least, escaped being 'verbed'.

In fact "verb" is offered in the OED only as a noun so officially, at least, verb has yet to be verbed. But while the word has yet to force its way into the dictionary the practice (or in this case practise?) is widespread.

Is this a sign of a vigorous, evolving language, or simply a reflection of lazy thinking and lazy writing? I suspect the latter. This magazine, at least, is definitely not ready for verbisation, though the OED does list "verbalise" as "excessive or empty use of language"... which seems to say it all.

Word of the day: ruggedised

I came across the word 'ruggedised' on a manufacturer's website today, and was surprised to find it in the OED. It means "designed or improved to be hard-wearing".

I suppose then that we could talk about the process of ruggedisation, or about ruggedisationary effects. Should that be ruggedisedory?

Word of the day: geofencing

The word of the day today is 'geofencing'. It sounds very sci-fi, doesn't it? It means:

restricting the movement of a vehicle or other object to within a specified area. The location of the vehicle is monitored by telemetry and an alarm is raised if it goes outside that area

Might be useful with cats, or toddlers.

There are some other great geo words, if you are interested...