I love words. One thing that has always tickled my brain about words is how and why some make it into the Dictionary and others remain in literary limbo. My sophmore year of college I tried to make up a new word and spread it around (it was such an awesome word that I can’t for the life me remember what it was). I wanted to see how far my word invention could get. Then I began to worry that my word would become popular and I wouldn’t ever get credit for its creation. However the hope (or fear) of me giving birth to a brand new English word quickly faded when everytime I used my new word, my roommate would tell the person I was talking to, that my word wasn’t a real word. (Thanks a lot Heather!)

While my easy-to-forget word didn’t ever make it past my dorm room, the word “Meh” recently got a spot in the Collins English Dictionary. That’s right “meh.” The dictionary defines “meh” as an expression of indifference or boredom, or an adjective meaning mediocre or boring. The word had been chosen from terms suggested by the public for inclusion in the dictionary’s 30th anniversary edition, which will be released in 2009.

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Some scary movies cause me major horripilation. Oh what’s that? You don’t know what horripilation means? Okay fine, neither did I until I signed up for Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day emails. Every day I receive an e-mail with the Word of the Day, its definition and example sentences. It’s a free and easy way to build your vocabulary (and impress people with all them fancy words!) Heck, who couldn’t benefit from learning something new, right?
http://www.dictionary.com" target="_blank" class="takepartbug" onclick="javascript:urchinTracker('/file/br_/_http_//www.dictionary.com');">takepart and build your collection of words by visiting dictionary.com. (Fun fact! My roomie is obsessed with the “hear” feature on Dictionary.com where you can hear a robotic voice say just about any word. I guess that’s not really a fun fact. It’s just something I think is waggish. But you probably don’t know my roommate, so it’s probably not as waggish to you. Oh what’s that? You don’t know what waggish means? Well, all the more reason you should go to dictionary.com)

There is also the equally awesome thesaurus.com

And FYI horripilation is a noun meaning: the act or process of the hair bristling on the skin, as from cold or fear; goose flesh.

Horripilation also sounds waggish when spoken through the robot “listen” feature.

So I found this awesome new site called Wordle - where you can create fun word maps out of text! Just enter in the text you want (something you wrote, an excerpt you love etc… ) and you’ll get a fun visual representation.

Above is a TakePart wordle that I made! takepart to make your own wordle today and spread the word on words you love!

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I love words. I love silly words. I love new words. And I LOVE dirty words. Call me a twelve year-old boy, but potty mouths make me laugh. However seems the Supreme Court is looking to crack down on cracking obscene jokes.

The justices agreed to give the Federal Communications Commission a chance to defend its decision to start punishing broadcasters for the isolated and fleeting on-air use of expletives, an abrupt change in the commission policy that a federal appeals court last year found procedurally improper.

It has been almost exactly 30 years since the Supreme Court ruled in the “seven dirty words” case that the First Amendment did not bar the government from regulating the broadcasting of speech that, while “indecent,” was not actually obscene. The broadcast at issue then was a 12-minute monologue by the comedian George Carlin, titled “Filthy Words,” that deliberately challenged federal regulators by highlighting “the words you couldn’t say” on the public airwaves. [New York Times]

I was going to embed that brilliant Carlin clip but alas it’s a bit too foul for Takepart.com so click here to view it. Warning it’s explicit… and awesome.

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Merriam-Webster announced it’s 2007 word of the year. And the award goes to…w00t.Yes, w00t. With zero’s as the O’s.The word is a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumphMerriam-Webster’s president, John Morse explained “It shows a really interesting thing that’s going on in language. It’s a term that’s arrived only because we’re now communicating electronically with each other…Gamers commonly substitute numbers and symbols for the letters they resemble, creating what they call “l33t speak” ” that’s “leet” when spoken, short for “elite” to the rest of the world.”L33t speak? Are the rumors true! Are we turning into robots!?(Personally, I think the word of the year should have been douchebag, but hey I ain’t no  dictionary writer.)Well, congrats to w00t for making 2007 such a fabulous year in obscure technobabbly language! And good luck to LMAO and fartknocker, may 2008 be your year!