New words to help you ‘chew the fat’

On this day, April 14, 1828, Noah Webster published the first edition of his “American Dictionary of the English Language.”

In honor of his contribution to the American language, ( I’m a firm believer that our national language is not English, we won the War for Independence, why should we continue to speak THEIR language?) I went to Webster’s website, http://m-w.com, to see if there were any new words that we should know. There was only one…

“Blog- noun [short for Weblog] (1999): a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.”

Blogging has become a favorite personal hobby, perhaps even a bad habit of mine. Whenever I send out emails to my friends to announce a new article that I wrote or an artwork that I posted, one of them always writes me back to tell me that they think I have too much free time.

When that happens, I always want to tell them that it really doesn’t take much time at all. That’s the whole point of blogging- some free service provides a template of a webpage for you, all you have to do is upload whatever you want to post there. Half the time all you do is click on one button and type a sentence commenting on whatever news article you’re reading or whatever website you’re visiting.

If you visit my blog at http://tedscolumn.blogspot.com, you can read this column or past columns. I also have links there to blogs where you can see artworks, read prayers, or read my journal as a Cheerleading Coach. Okay, it will look like I have too much time on my hands, but most of it was done when I’d be waiting around after school and before basketball games.

Enough about blogging. Macmillan Publishers compiled a list of the 52 most popular new words of 2004 which they posted on their dictionary’s website: www.macmillandictionary.com. Here are a just a few new words to add to your “Word Power” as they call it in Reader’s Digest:

Probably the scariest new word in our language has to be “Dirty bomb noun- a radiological weapon which uses conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material through the atmosphere.”

Perhaps the most overused new word is “Metrosexual.” If you haven’t heard it before, you obviously don’t spend much time with teenaged girls. It is a noun, it refers to “a heterosexual male with a strong interest in fashion, appearance and other lifestyle characteristics traditionally associated with women.” High school girls love this concept. I think it’s because they want desperately to be girlfiends with a boy without having to be his girlfriend. You know what I mean? That or they want boyfriends who’re suave and debonair, not just your everyday macho slobs.

I don’t know who invented “Speed-dating noun -a method of meeting a potential romantic partner by briefly talking to a series of individuals at an organized event, and indicating whether you are interested in seeing any of them again.” But I know it must have been someone pretty lonely and desperate. What ever happened to “Singles’ Bars?”

I’m sure by now that you’re familiar with “Re-gifting,” that’s where someone gives you something that you don’t want or need and you pass it on to someone else as if you bought it just for them because you have no idea what to get them or how to get rid of whatever you got. But have you heard of “Shopgrifting?” It’s “the activity of purchasing something from a shop, using it, and then returning it within a specific period in order to get a full refund.” I think that a lot of dads should think about doing this with their daughter’s prom dresses. As if they’ll ever wear it again anyway.

And finally there’s “Fat Tax- noun -a tax on foods which are considered to be unhealthy, especially fatty or sweet foods which can lead to obesity or other health problems.” I always thought it was funny when smokers and heavy drinkers would gripe about having to pay a “Sin Tax.”

Frankly, I think that a “Fat Tax” is a great idea, I’ll take any help I can get. If they can discourage me from eating things that are making me lose my battle of the bulge and at the same time generate revenue that could pave roads, repair schools, retrain people for new jobs, or provide more people with health benefits, by Gosh, that’s what I call our government work for us.