The OED has picked “podcast” as it’s word of the year according to The Book Standard, which is kind of cool. It’s wonderful how technology has infiltrated everyday life and how everyone now is either blogging, listening to podcasts or downloading some hot tune from iTunes.
I think the best present anyone could get me is the Oxford English Dictionary. My daily email from them sort of pales in comparison to what it might be like to own the entire glorious set of bajillion volumes. Oh, the things I would learn.
Like today for example, the Word of the Day was “girl power,” and are you as shocked as I was to learn that it was not, in fact, a product of the Spice Girls marketing team, but the Catholic church who coined it, well the church according to a British writer anyway. In 1952, Malcolm Lowry’s book Let contained this sentence: “Nearby is a Catholic church within which it says: ‘We want girl-power for our convent’.”
Words are awesome.
Jan bought me the Oxford for my 29th birthday. He included a card that made me refer to words he’d underlined in pencil. “You are pg 374” And it would be “bootylicious” or something funny like that. Best gift ever.