Verboticisms

Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: ree ty ro sar

Sentence: When Mary reached 65, she knew it was time to stop working. She had become a retirosaur. She no longer spoke the language of her younger boss and co-workers. She could remember working the teletype, a comptometer and her ancient Underwood typewriter had served her well. She had used a dictionary, a thesaurus, knew how to spell; remember people's names; compose grammatically correct sentences and do complex mathematical computations in her head. The staff loved her, but found her to be a quaint walking, talking museum on legs. Yes, Mary had worked for 45 years at the same place and the reason she had been kept on this long was because she knew how to do each job well and she knew where all the bodies were buried!

Etymology: Retire (Withdraw from circulation or participation; cease to work) & Dinosaur (any of numerous extinct terrestrial reptiles of the Mesozoic era)

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COMMENTS:

"Retirosaur!" Just like the Little Red Hen, let Mary say "Not I!" It's sad we can't make the good things that are in the past, more a part of the good things in the present ... glean the best of the both! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-07: 15:48:00

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Created by: FreakyDeak

Pronunciation: Pro-toe-gram

Sentence: Still using your brain to think? It's such a protogram. Try google, you Neanderthal.

Etymology: Proto(prefix meaning earliest form of something) + Program

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Created by: Jamagra

Pronunciation: ster'/e/o/lith

Sentence: Jacob cringed in embarrassment at every soccer game. When would his parents get rid of that stereolithic camera they had and get with the digital age? It was completely humiliating... especially when the flip flash blinded his teammates just as they tried to score a goal.

Etymology: stereo - three dimensional (as in stereoscopic photography & stereotype print); also stereophonic sound reproduction + monolith - something formed of a single slab of stone

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COMMENTS:

Innovative etymology and word. Well done! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:03:00

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Created by: silveryaspen

Pronunciation: gadg jettison

Sentence: Gadgets evolve so quickly, that those of today, are outdated tomorrow, and become gadjettisons.

Etymology: GADGETS, JETTISON. GADGETS - machines, objects, things. JETTISON - throw out, get rid of, abandon, discard, ditch, chuck, dump, chuck out

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COMMENTS:

Egad! another top word! - galwaywegian, 2009-01-07: 12:05:00

great combo - Jabberwocky, 2009-01-07: 14:23:00

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Created by: jajsr

Pronunciation: Hi-row-me-D-a

Sentence: Josh's grandfather knew Josh needed something to research projects for school. Instead of buying him a lap-top computer, he brought him a complete volume of hieromedia - in this case encyclopedias.

Etymology: Combination of "Hiero" from hieroglyphic - the picture script of the ancient Egyptians; and "Media"

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Created by: Tigger

Pronunciation: /ruhs-teh-kor-ding/

Sentence: George totally enjoyed bringing his 8-year-old son with him to help clean out Grandpa's attic — where Grandpa had stored all of his old electronics and rusticordings. Grandpa had been an avid technophile in his day and the attic was like an obsolete technology museum. When George showed him the Betamax and VHS video tapes, and explained that they were like DVD-R's, Nathan inpected them and asked where the lasers went. Then, when they got to the cassettes and 8-track tapes, George told Nathan that they were what people kept their MP3's on, and then he showed Nathan the rust-colored tape and demonstrated how it turned. Nathan wanted to know how people selected the song they wanted to hear, and so George had to explain Fast Forward and Rewind, while his son struggled with the archaic concept. The vinyl records were next, and when George showed him the groove on the record, and explained how you had to carefully position the needle so as not to scratch the record, Nathan just winced and said, "Wow, Grandpa really had it rough!"

Etymology: Rust[ic] - iron [ferric] oxide; also, a thin layer of ferric oxide was used in most magnetic tapes, floppy disks and early hard discs (Old German, rost "red") + Recording - storage device containing information (from Old French, recorder "testimony")

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COMMENTS:

Yeah, I can no longer play my rustaccordion either! - arrrteest, 2008-03-14: 12:04:00

Will use it a lot! Excellent word! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:22:00

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Created by: karenanne

Pronunciation: tek STINCT

Sentence: Why is it that the VHS video format is considered boring and old-fashioned, while both the Beta tapes and the Beta machines required to play them, which are even older, are now considered "retro" and "cute?" I guess the closer something gets to becoming techstinct, the cooler it becomes for collectors due to its rarity.

Etymology: tech + extinct

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Created by: TJayzz

Pronunciation: Tek-no-gliffiks

Sentence: When young Henry was given a set of books for Christmas he spent half an hour looking for the battery compartment, his mum explained that you actually had to read them. Henry was so astounded with the technoglyphics he thought about putting them in an antiques auction.

Etymology: Techno(abbrieviation for technological) + Hieroglyphics(ancient Egyptian script) = Technoglyphics

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COMMENTS:

so sad - Jabberwocky, 2009-01-07: 14:24:00

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Created by: silveryaspen

Pronunciation: de - fund - shun - als

Sentence: Humans have been inventing ways to store funds of knowledge from before the stone age to the present. Stone carvings, paper, books, pictures, vinyl records, tapes, disks, computer memory banks, data servers, ipods, blackberries, etc. We keep them all, though we seldom use the archaic ones. Was the first cosmic fund of knowledge written in the stars? Will the last fund of cosmic knowedge be written in the stars? Perhaps all these others in-between, are, were, and always have been, mere defundtionals.

Etymology: Fund, Defunctional. Fund: sources of things stored or saved. Defunctional: no longer used, operative, or functional.

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COMMENTS:

philosophical one - bigveg, 2008-03-14: 03:04:00

So, what you are saying is that every idea ever related by mankind are somehow stored in the universe. The last words spoken by Amelia Earhart may be recorded in the sand of an isolated atoll somewhere, the waves of her voice rearranging the particles of sand that lay beneath her contorted face as she met her end. The lost works of Chaucer could be reclaimed from the atomic impressions remaining on a rotting desk from the 14th century. The library at Alexandria could be reconstructed from a million fragments of ashen scrolls with the ability to distinguish ink from charcoal, and vast arrays of computers to reassemble the fragments into complete manuscripts. Every electromagnetic conveyance of media ever produced can be reclaimed from the stars if we can overcome the speed of light in order to catch up to it, as it travels through the vast emptiness of space. The only idea that can never be successfully reclaimed is the idea that is never communicated, so long as we can use our intellect in pursuit of the technology to recover that information. The possibility of mankind is limitl...whoops, gotta go, American Idol is on! - Banky, 2008-03-14: 10:23:00

Nice word :) - Banky, 2008-03-14: 10:24:00

Maybe planned obsolescence is in our DNA? - arrrteest, 2008-03-14: 13:21:00

I think there may be a book in this one - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-14: 14:03:00

Wow! Never expected so many comments on my two QUEST-tionings! It was asked in a much lighter vein than it was received! Banky, you read so much more into those two little questions!!! But here's another question for what ever you all want to see in it. Do our subconscious minds tap into an ethereal storage bank of all knowledge in the universe, then come up with bits of knowledge and solutions our conscious minds couldn't find ... and then place that in our conscious minds? I'll leave the book writing up to Banky and Nosila. I just have questions ... for me, life is but a quest for more about all things. I'm just grateful for how much easier it is to access all information in all the various media! But at the rate it is growing ... there is no such thing as all-knowing among us mere mortals. You're right Jabberwocky ... a book ... maybe many books!!! (wink/big smile). - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 16:58:00

Nice word;thought provoking sentence! - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-16: 17:03:00

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Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: pas say im pur fect

Sentence: Young Billy adored his grandfather and loved it when the old geezer told him stories about the passéimperfect. He knew his grandpa made this stuff up, but he loved to hear about the good old days anyway and in particular about the ancient tools they used. He regaled Billy with yarns about how his phone had numbers that went round and round when he stuck his finger in the holes for each set of numbers. Grandpa also told him about watching tv shows on the one channel in black & white and for some reason you needed a rabbit's ears to see the tiny picture better. (As if!) He also told him of cooking without using a microwave (yeah, right!) and buying big blocks of ice to keep everything in the fridge cold (you've got to be kidding!). That crazy Grandpa, he told Billy that a log on was something you put on a bonfire and that a link was something you put on your sleeves to keep the cuffs closed. He said a password was something you spoke into a grill on a door to get into a speak-easy (must be some kind of spellcheck for voice actioned computers?) Billy loved the really old things that Grandpa gave him. Like most boys his age, he loved dinosaurs. He was so excited today, because Grandpa was coming over and bringing him a thesaurus...he couldn't wait to play with it!

Etymology: passé (out of fashion) & past imperfect (grammar: tense imperfect refers to an action that is uncompleted or abandoned)

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COMMENTS:

Rrrawr! Oh no, here comes the fierce Thesaurus Rex!... That's hilarious. - Tigger, 2008-03-14: 03:09:00

All that was makes me curious about what is to come! Great etymology ... conveys the way passages from the old ... lead to the knew ... growing, evolving, better and better ... perfecting! A Perfectly wonderful sentence and word! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 17:08:00

Thanks, Tigger & silveryaspen. I always thought the best name for the Toronto NBA Team was TorontoSaurus Wrecks...but no one would listen... - Nosila, 2008-03-14: 23:16:00

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