Our regular diet of drivel and twaddle

Mark Peters on the Colbert Suffix

In his fantastic book On Bullshit, the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt says a bullshitter “does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.” Maybe that has something to do with why Stephen Colbert’s bullshit synonym "truthiness" has hit the linguistic spot like few words in recent years: It names the degraded condition of truth in media, government, nonfiction, and elsewhere. "Truthiness" has been so successful that it’s begun fathering children—"fameiness," "referenciness," and others—that demonstrate the Colbert suffix, a timely new meaning of an old word ending that allows writers to spoof and skewer our regular diet of drivel and twaddle.

Speaking of new words, clearly, I am not up to speed with online phenomenon be it social networking or gaming! I had never heard of this 'word' before. (Clearly, I am regressing over time. I was so in-the-know just 5 years ago when 'Doh' was added to the Oxford dictionary in 2002. ;))

Merriam-Webster's word of '07: 'w00t':

"W00t," a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph, topped all other terms in the Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year online poll for the word that best sums up 2007.

Elsewhere... The Oxford dictionary, like the Nobel committee, falls victim to political correctness and joins the green bandwagon.

The word of the year is a phrase. Go figure.
The word of the year is a phrase. Go figure. ... The Oxford American English Dictionary has chosen carbon neutral as its word of the year.

Speaking of words...check this one out by which Amit Varma finally recognizes the degenerate me... :) (But in my defence, I just like words. Especially words like onomatopoeia. :))

Also, if you really are a wordsmith, check out BBC TWO's Balderdash & Piffle.

The Oxford English Dictionary asked for public assistance to help them trace the history of 40 well-known words and phrases. From 'identity theft' to 'pole dance', Balderdash & Piffle's wordhunters stopped at nothing to do their bit for the English language. Thanks to an outstanding response from the public, viewers of the television series will have seen Victoria Coren persuade the OED's editors to rewrite the entries for 27 of the 40 words on the Wordhunt list.