251) Words of the Year

Grant Barrett of the New York Times compiled a list of The Words of the Year. The lingo that peppered our (or some of our) speech as we navigated our way through 2010. The list is separated into categories, the most interesting (to me) being Communicating:

coffice: In South Korea, a coffee shop habitually used as an office by customers, who mooch its space, electricity, Wi-Fi and other resources. Presumably, they pay for the coffee.

halfalogue: Half of a conversation, like an overheard phone call. The term was coined in the research paper “Overheard Cell-Phone Conversations: When Less Speech is More Distracting” in the journal Psychological Science.

sofalize: A British marketing term created for people who prefer to stay home and communicate with others electronically.

mansplainer: A man compelled to explain or give an opinion about everything — especially to a woman. He speaks, often condescendingly, even if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about or even if it’s none of his business. Old term: a boor.

social graph: The structure of personal networks, who people know and how they know them, especially online. The term probably came from the internal lingo at Facebook, but it has spread widely among technology companies.

All (except for mansplainer) are great reflections of our increasing mobility and our online social world. I'm a huge fan of sofalize, because it is such an oxymoron - sitting solo on your couch but still socializing.

While interesting, I'm not sure of the criteria for making the Words of the Year list - prior to reading the article, I'd never heard nor used any of those five words. True, they are all new words (the criteria?) that originated from niche groups, but I don't think they've infiltrated the layperson's lexicon just yet. While not new, I'd argue that "like," "check-in," "sext," and "retweet," deserve spots on the top Communication words of 2010.