Brave new word

One thing you can count on besides your abacus is this: you can never say, that's it, we have all the words we will ever need. Real words, that is.  Words stumbled upon and half baked by the likes of Sarah Palin, who used the word-known-only-to-her "refudiate" for a few days until some brave soul tapped her on the shoulder, don't count.  Just learn the ones that Merriam-Webster adds to their dictionary, and you'll be fine.

'Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it! - Sarah Palin, unlikely to be confused with the Bard of Avon

 Anyhow, M-W just added 250 new words, some of which ("schneid") have been hanging around for years, hoping to be added to the book, and some ("froyo") that just showed up out of nowhere.  

And now these newly-listed words can be used in word games, and the people at "Jumble" can finally stop using "AVOYEG*" every three weeks!

So, here we go. "Hive mind" is in the dictionary now! The complete definition is way too involved to include here, but it has to do with people acting on a mob mentality, like a swarm of bees, rather than using their own noggins. "Froyo" is not a word I would feel comfortable using out loud, being a cute portmanteau for "frozen yogurt," which I would pass up 31 times on the way to Baskin-Robbins. "Schneid" is used in the term "get off the schneid," which is to say, "finally win something after many losses." Where does that come from? It's fascinating! "Schneider" is Yiddish for "tailor," and a tailor cuts cloth, so to lose is to be cut from the list of winners.  The schneid is definitely something off of which you want to be.

Bibimbap 

"Sriracha" is on the list now - that great hot sauce I like so much.  There's also "Bibimbap," which I thought was a song that Jennifer Lopez sang in the "Selena" movie, but no. That song was "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom." Bibimbap is "a Korean dish of rice with cooked vegetables, usually meat, and often an egg, either raw or fried."  Never heard of that. 

Nor had I heard of the term "The Internet of Things," which is how Peggy approaches all of life's crazy problems! My wise wife, faced with a TV with no audio or a need for a recipe, turns to YouTube while I page through the World Almanac, 1960 edition. 

A "troll" is no longer that goofy doll with goofy hair, but is instead the goof that shows up every time you write something nice on someone else's Facebook, saying "Oh yeah? Happy birthday, Edna...but Benghazi, though!"  

How about "onboarding"?  That's the new way to say "hire a new employee, make him or her feel like part of the team, outline policies they need to know and train them to do their job."  It does save a few words...

One more?  "Front" as a verb...it's been with us for a while, and it means to put up a false front.  I never miss a chance to talk about Potemkin villages, since there are so many in our town.


*VOYAGE