We haven’t had a chance yet to look at local author Paul JJ Payack‘s A Million Words and Counting: How Global English Is Rewriting the World (published May 1 by Citadel), but we did spend some time bumming around his popular website LanguageMonitor.com.

The site tracks buzzwords from realms political, pop cultural, and tech, as well as announces any new additions to the lexicon. According to the countdown clock, we’re only 4,156 words away from hitting the million-word mark in the English language. The latest to be codified?

e-vampire: (noun) electric equipment that consumes energy while in standby mode

While we’re all for a living language, we can’t help but squirm at the hyper-shorthand and word-mashing that now dominates pop culture communication. A friend of ours casually dropped “stay-vacay” in a conversation this weekend (word up, Nora!), and I wasn’t sure if I should laugh, cry, or climb up the soapbox like the fusty old man I was born to be, railing about these kids today and their lack of respect for the marvel that is the English language.

I know, I know: Whatevs.

But if you indulge me just this one last bit, before I get the soapbox kicked out from under me: In a landscape littered with OMGs, and OMFGs, and superfluous superlatives like perf and brill, it’s a rare treat indeed to come across a word that you just want to sit back and bask in. It happened to me this weekend while reading Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland – a word that made me put my book down just so I could work my mouth around it:

gormlessness

How great is that?

This article appears in June 6 • 2008.

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A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...