The NY Times covers 2004 in words.
Now the great conduit is the blogosphere, both a neologism itself and an uncharted space that, the more we map it, looks more and more like our collective unconscious. It dreams up the new words and disseminates them directly into the language, no longer by IV but by instant messaging - a term, by the way, that may soon require its own retronym: messengered message.
Case in point are a few would be words that arose to prominence in the Glossary for 2004:
podcasting, n., the automated distribution of radio-like programming - interviews, music or even content from established broadcasters - to portable digital audio players. From iPod (the most popular portable MP3 player) plus broadcasting.
wiki, n., a community-built Web site that allows content to be edited by anyone. From the Hawaiian wiki, which means fast, or wikiwiki, which means very fast. Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews are examples, although many smaller sites exist, too, often for software projects.
While many are pondering consumerism today, its nice to think we at least produce words, even though we need them validated by mainstream media. Our new common understandings include not to be evil and how in a world of distraction, attention is the most valuable commodity:
"Attention is more expensive than it used to be," said Susan Crawford, an assistant professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, in an interview. But she noted that there might even be something positive from the data maelstrom. In her blog, she asked, "Are we just getting better at processing information - so that we really can listen to a podcast, write an e-mail, open a chat session and write the Great American Novel all at once?"
She then wrote: "Gotta go. Someone's IMing me."
Ditto.
