Get Dorito Syndrome here. (logophilia.com)

Member Name: The Operator

Product:	logophilia.com
Date:	18/04/02 (137 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well...

Disadvantages: Maybe not...

"Never forget that if you don't hit a newspaper reader between the eyes with your first sentence, there is no need of writing a second one."
- Arthur Brisbane

So goes the daily quote on the home page of my new most favourite website. Notice I couldn't come up with a blinder so I borrowed someone else's.

I like words. Serendipity is meant to be the nation's most loved and favourite word. It's turned up on dooyoo a few times and you probably know what it means. Happy accident, more or less. There I was the other day listening to the wireless at work and on comes the lexicographer, Jonathon Green. He's good, he's funny and his speciality is slang. He does an occasional slot on BBC London 94.9 so if you live outside the capital, tough. If you ever get a chance though, listen to him. He happened to mention logophilia.com and I just happened to be listening and I had something to assuage my boredom with when I got home. Happy accident. There you go, serendipitous.

Slang is the life-blood of any language. It's organic, it grows with the generations and often dies with them. Buy a time-machine and drop yourself into one of the notorious rookeries of old London such as Seven Dials and I doubt whether you'd understand a word. Few slang words survive from that era (don't ask, but I know Jonathon Green's written books on the subject - check Amazon, there are loads listed) because well, no-one was around to document it and it's down to the skills of lexicographers to research the subject.

No such problems now. We've gone all electronic and there's loads of the stuff around. With the bonus that every time someone coins a new word or one just appears through street slang, it's immediately documented somewhere. logophilia.com (how wonderful to start a sentence lower-casely) is in the business of bringing all this stuff together. Here, take this one for instance. I note
that dooyoo has suspended some of its WAP functions. Is this because of "WAPlash" ? - definition: "WAPlash (WAP.lash) noun. The backlash against accessing the Internet using a WAP-enabled cell phone or other wireless device".
You'll find this and loads more like it in the "Word Spy" section, subtitled "Lexpionage" or "the sleuthing of new words and of old words used in new ways". Here's a few more including first off, today's new one (a new one appears every day):

"perma-youth (PUR.muh-yooth; th as in thin) n. An appearance of youthfulness maintained over time by using cosmetic surgery; a person who maintains such an appearance. - adj. Relating to such an appearance. Also: permayouth." or,
"sedentary death syndrome (SED.un.tair.ee deth SIN.drum, -drohm) n. Death caused by extreme inactivity and poor nutrition. Also: SeDS." Sounds like one for many of us on here.

Of course, the one from my title?
"Dorito syndrome noun. Feelings of dissatisfaction and mental bloatedness after spending an inordinate amount of time performing a task without tangible benefit."

Each word or phrase has a citation culled from a book or newspaper. There are a surprising amount of British English citations too, considering that this is a US site. I spotted several from the Independent and The Times.

If you're into Scrabble there's a section for cheating. Or rather not as it's a search engine based on official Scrabble word lists as used in tournaments. Type what you think is a word and it will approve it if it's valid. Alongside this is the "de-scrabbler" Got X Q U and an F left? Type in your letters and some random ones, such as maybe a K and a C from consecutive squares on the board and it'll come up with an answer with the reference work from whence it was culled. And yes, blimey that word does appear in all three major
reference works. So go ahead kids and shock your mum with the rider that "But it IS a proper word. It says so here!"

There are quotations about words in the "Words About Words" section, too. A couple are listed here but there are hundreds to choose from. A good source without having to ferret through hundreds of google pages.

By far and away the most popular part of the site is the "Word Prospector" or "Word Mine". This is in the games bit (Word Play) which also includes a random sentence generator and a couple of crosswords. Basically it's a word search based on finding 4,5 and 6 letter words from a 10 letter main word. There are two - a daily one (murderous) and a weekly one (not so difficult). However, it does tend to get dominated by the smug buggers who have word jumbly software and instantly all appear with the same tally at the top of the pile. It is fun though if you can grab an online friend and race them up the list. Annoying if the friend claims to have spoken a foreign language for 20 years and still beats you.

Logophilia is produced by the author Paul McFedries, writer of many software tutors and web designer manuals so he may be familiar to many out there.

Finally, some people on this site may well like heed these words from taken David Copperfield (the book, not the illusionist) and sourced from the "Words About Words" section of logophilia;
"We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannise over them too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds well."

Keep it simple, but use them well.

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