New 2008 Lexicon Type

Grant Barrett is a lexicographer specializing in slang and new words. He is a co-host of the public radio program “A Way With Words” and head of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society. Here are some of the words he tracked this year. Illustrations by Jessica Hische.


Frugalista
A person who is frugal but fashionable.

Staycation
A vacation from work or school that does not involve traveling.

The sharp degradation of a digital broadcast signal beyond a certain distance. This cliff could be encountered when analog signals cease broadcasting on Feb. 18, 2009. Households that received analog signals just fine may find that the digital signal doesn’t work.

A term coined by Jack Black for the movie “Kung Fu Panda” and popularized by the movie’s promoters. It appears during a crucial scene in the movie and accompanies a gesture.

Excellent in the fashion of the swimmer Michael Phelps, who won eight medals and set seven world records at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The opposite of gas-guzzler. Though more than 30 years old, the term took on new significance as gasoline prices rose to record highs.

A nickname for Beijing, whose skies are some of the most polluted in the world.

Photobombing
Intentionally inserting oneself as an unwelcome subject in the background of someone else’s photograph.

Driving while texting, the distracting practice of sending text messages while operating an automobile.

Age-Doping
The falsification of records to show that an athlete meets participation requirements for a sporting event. This issue arose with Chinese gymnasts in the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

A new term designated by the International Astronomical Union to refer to Pluto and space objects like it, which are something less than planets.

Quake Lake
A new lake formed by May’s major earthquake in China.

Originally, someone who favored a recession as ultimately good for the economy. Now, a person who stays fashionable during an economic downturn without spending a lot of money.

Nuke the Fridge
To ruin a movie franchise; usually attributed to the arrogance of a successful producer or director. The term was coined based on a scene in the latest Indiana Jones movie, in which the hero survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. The term is patterned after jump the shark, coined a few years ago to refer to anything that had peaked in popularity or quality and was now on a downward slide toward ridiculousness and irrelevancy.

A style of hands-on self-education that benefits the student without concern for curriculums or the interests of schools, corporations or governments. In other words, an autodidactic approach that spurns commercialism, mass-market approaches and top-down goal-setting. Coined by Jim Groom, an “instructional technologist” at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.