Welcome to another installment of SHANE’S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.
But why all these newfangled words?
Why not the old, familiar, comforting words, like the ones you’re sure to hear when asking the city’s corporate attorney why the answers to my FOIA/public records request for Bicentennial commission finances, due to be handed over on July 8, still haven’t arrived on September 28?
Bicentennial commission financial trail? What’s two (yawn) weeks (shrug) after 463 days?
September 28 update: Make that 12 weeks since the FOIA record request’s due date and 532 days since I asked Bob Caesar to tell us how many books were left unsold, and how much the city’s 200-year “summer of love” fest cost.
It’s because a healthy vocabulary isn’t about intimidation through erudition. Rather, it’s about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one’s pay grade or station in life.
Even these very same iniquitous, paving-bond-slush-engorged municipal corporate attorneys who customarily are handsomely remunerated to suppress information can benefit from this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, as we contemplate what they knew and when they knew it, all we have left is plenty of time — and the opportunity to learn something, if we’re so inclined.
Today, a fun link provided by the inimitable Scott Wise of Scotty’s Brewhouse fame.
30 words and phrases that will soon disappear from American English, by Thu-Huong Ha (Quartz)
American English is rich with idiom and slang. But as new words enter the lexicon, many old expressions fall into disuse.
Earlier this month the Dictionary of American Regional English, a project to capture the ebb and flow of the country’s regional vocabulary, released a list of 50 “endangered” words and phrases to try and keep them in use.