Hey Mouse Potato, Have You Seen the Latest Webinar? wOOt!

If the title doesn’t make sense, don’t worry! You’ll soon be able to look up all those weird words because Marriam-Webster has added 100 new words to its dictionary.

Although the media has dutifully reported Marriam-Webster’s press release by mentioning these 100 new words, there is not a conclusive list anywhere — not even on Marriam-Webster’s website.

The skies must be quiet, because one of SETI’s volunteers claims to have taken the trouble to stop monitoring the universe for ETs in order to telephone the publisher to get the actual list. You can find the first 25 words here — the other 75 should be published soon … if the post wasn’t a joke. It seems that the 25 words posted on SETI’s forum appear all over the Net. Nonetheless, here are some of the new phrases or words that everyone’s been talking about:

• malware n (1990) : software designed to interfere with a computer’s normal functioning
• mental health day n (1971) : a day that an employee takes off from work in order to relieve stress or renew vitality
• netroots n pl (2003) : the grassroots political activists who communicate via the Internet esp. by blogs
• webinar n (1998) : a live online educational presentation during which participating viewers can submit questions and comments

Playing off the term “couch potato,” “mouse potato” showed up in Merriam-Webster a year or two ago and means, “1993 slang : a person who spends a great deal of time using a computer.”

Those mouse potatoes may have been part of the Ron Paul revolution, known for its unprecedented Internet activism and for smashing political fundraising records by raising over $6 million in campaign donations in just one day. Impressive as all this was, folks at Fox news and elsewhere frequently referred to Paul and/or his supporters as “wing nuts.” Well, maybe because the Revolution became so popular, “wing nut” is now a new official dictionary phrase, too:

Wing nut (circa 1900): Slang: one who advocates extreme measures or changes; radical.

If you hang out at any Internet forums or blogs, you’ve certain come across the word “wOOt” (with a !) a time or two. Named the 2007 word of the year, Marriam-Webster defines it as “expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word ‘yay.’”

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