Verboticisms

Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: bay ta blok

Sentence: When Sammy tried to put his dvd in Grandpa's old video machine, he found it was in betablock mode. No wonder Grandpa had heart trouble. Sammy was confused and felt like someone travelling back in a time machine...Grandpa's videos were on Beta, his music on 8 Track, his movies were on 8 mm, his tv was in black & white and his telephone had a rotary dial. No wonder Grandpa was so old...it took him ages to get in contact with the outside world!

Etymology: Beta (old video format, before VHS) & Beta Blocker (any of various drugs used in treating hypertension or arrhythmia; decreases force and rate of heart contractions by blocking beta-adrenergic receptors of the autonomic nervous system)

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Created by: artr

Pronunciation: ōldfashənäləjē

Sentence: Denise loves to keep up with the newest technology. Her checkbook doesn’t always allow her to keep up. You can imagine her excitement when the prices started dropping on one of her favorite data-storage devices. Now she is in the dumps because zip drives have joined the world of oldfashionology.

Etymology: old-fashioned (no longer current or common; not modern) + technology (the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes)

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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: Stevenson0

Pronunciation: tik/stingkt

Sentence: The inability of any of today's computers to read the written data on the old large floppy disks have made them textinct.

Etymology: text + extinct

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COMMENTS:

Meaning readily apparent and so full! Ingenious choice of words to blend! Superb Won! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:30:00

Excellent!! - Mustang, 2008-03-14: 19:38:00

Excellent! - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-16: 17:07:00

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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: petaj

Pronunciation: ob-sol-lacks

Sentence: Charmain looked forlorn after her best efforts at obsolackss failed to provide a workaround to access her family history data from the ancient shiny disc she discovered in the attic. If only Grandma had practised lockss.

Etymology: obsolete + hack + lockss (lots of copies keeps stuff safe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOCKSS)

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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: purpleartichokes

Pronunciation: mim-ee-oh-gaff

Sentence: Humphrey inserted the floppy disk and cranked the handle, but to know avail. He sighed in disappointment, realizing that he may never know what a graph of a mimeo looked like. His mimeograph was nothing more than a mimeogaffe.

Etymology: mimeograph, gaffe

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COMMENTS:

how sad but how true - A young guest tried to use an old rotary dial phone at our house and just kept pushing their fingers into the holes to no avail - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-14: 14:06:00

Another walk down byte-gone ways! Great word play! Very nicely done! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:34:00

Sadly, I used a mimeograph and no one knows what I'm talking about (as usual). - Nosila, 2008-03-14: 23:02:00

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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: Nosila

Pronunciation: gram pa fone

Sentence: The boys loved going to visit Grampa, because he had so many neat old-fashioned gizmos that they had never seen before. One of their favourites was the grampaphone. It was a gramophone that played very old songs on 78 rpm records. It needed wound up all the time. Their parents were amazed that the boys knew the words to very old vaudeville, burlesque and music hall songs. They knew all the songs recorded by Al Jolson, Gracie Fields, George Formby, Edith Piaf, Rudy Vallee and Fats Waller among others. Their folks knew they spent too much time on the grampaphone, when they said goodbye to their teacher, Mrs. Jones. They would croon to her, "Toot-Toot-Tootsie goodbye, Toot-Toot-Tootsie, don't cry..."

Etymology: Gramophone (an antique record player; the sound of the vibrating needle is amplified acoustically) & Grampa (your father or mother's father; the affectionate term for a grandfather)

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COMMENTS:

A Grampaphone could also be that odd black plastic device that plugs into the wall and works like a cell with an anchor. - artr, 2010-05-24: 07:54:00

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