Today's new word is backlimate. It's the state of returning somewhere after an absence and getting comfortable again. My daughter just spent a weekend in California visiting a friend and now has to backlimate to school in Boston.
Making up words is fun and is certainly easier than using the correct words in many contexts. The trick is to make up something that will make sense even if there's no definition available. The Internet encourages this, because you can crowdsource acceptance of words pretty quickly, as happened with selfie or twerk. Of course, making up a word requires associated usage rules, like you can't get backlimated back to something because it's redundant, as it would be to take a selfie of yourself or to twerk....I'm not sure where to go with that one.
I was also pleased to discover a new word for things like iPads, which are generally called by the unsatisfying name tablet. Or in the case of the smaller ones with phones, the even worse phablet. The term I saw in a British article about touchscreens in cars is fondleslab. I checked, it's in the Urban Dictionary and seems to be more prevalent in England. From what I can tell, not every tablet is a fondleslab- for it to be deemed so requires an over-involved owner. I did not see any associated name for said owner, which is probably just as well.
This fits in nicely with my discovery of the Boston abbreviation fad of the late 1830's, which spawned OK and included other purposeful misspellings as KG (Know Go) for "no go" or "it's no use," abbreviated IKY.
Funny that this kind of playfulness disappeared then until texting gave some necessity to abbreviating all the different ways that someone can show amusement or interject that they can no longer continue to converse. I for one am glad it's back and I hope that phone with superior keyboards or voice recognition don't destroy it.
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