Neologisms 10

Back on slightly more sociable hours today after yesterday's shift, which started in the Early Devonian and ended at 8pm. (Andy Shaw ‏@RedAndy54)

Michael Gove axes the six-week summer holiday. Hopefully three ghosts will shortly be paying him a visit. (Andy Shaw ‏@RedAndy54)

The old Greek and Roman pagan religions were by then [50AD] completely out of gas. (straightdope.com)

Man, where do they dig up these golden mouldies? (imdb.com reviewer)

Terribly sincere and sincerely terrible. (Nigel Andrews in the FT on Mother and Child Jan 2012)

‏Okay I am gonna again say say something massively controversial and then go PLUCK ERK and run away squawking in a cloud of feathers. (@bat020)

I swear it tore a hole in the space time continuum. I'm sure I caught a glimpse of Coco Chanel going the other way in a Hispano-Suiza. (@NEIL_OLIVER_)

And a pony. RT @markmackinnon: Poland wants more NATO troops in Eastern Europe, less EU reliance on Russian energy. (@Max_Fisher)

painfully middle class school (@woodo79)

panoptic view [of the history of reading] (As if from a panopticon or watchtower.)

My mind is sproingled. (Andrew Brown)

Their calls go more “Ah! Ah! Ah! –y”. (Gorilla expert on programme about evolutionary psychology)

the Viking river cruise stage of life (Jenny Éclair)

gangly public schoolboys disguised as Nordic fishermen (Jemima Lewis on hipsters)

celluloid flickerings from an otherly Albion... (Gareth Rees/@hackneymarshman)

thousands of hare-brained schemes whose doom is a near certainty. (The Guardian on startups)

Stephen Tompkinson plays Alan Banks with a kind of startled melancholy. (Martin Edwards)

the silliest idea since pet rocks (straightdope.com)

If you didn’t see that joke coming you’re probably from outer space. (Tim Wonnacott)

"Chocolate-covered broccoli"—i.e., educational content that is thinly disguised as a game. (@anniemurphypaul)

Government announce £5 off flights from Newquay as response to railline being cut, Marie Antoinette school of bad PR strikes again. (Fat ‏@Bloke_On_A_Bike)
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This weeks #NewLivesintheWild comes from the Philippines @RadioTimes calls it a "Poundland Version of Apocalypse Now". (@Benfogle )

pitying laugh (@revpamsmith)

Jacob Zuma candy-coated the State Of The Nation last week at the opening of Parliament. (mg.co.za)

One joy of this book… is just how much it’s also a history of the weathering of religion. What was once widely believed is now looked upon with incredulity. (Skeptic, Jan 2014)

Some Brits have a condescension chromosome when it comes to Antipodeans. (Clive James Jan 2014)

That hideous crashing noise was my attempt at irony. (Douglas Murphy ‏@entschwindet)

Irritating, plagiarized crap in list form (@MrJimBentley sums up what’s wrong with the internet)

social cross dressing (LRB Dec 2013 on pretending you come from a different class background - lower or higher)

There is complete adhockery in the education system. (Spokeswoman, BBC 2013-12-10)

The parasympathetic nervous system is up there with the Babylonians as the default explanation for anything you can't think of a good reason for. (straightdope.com)

the comfortable numbness of consumer culture (Mmmm! Bring it on!)


cruft: computer code that is never used
unbundle: from accountancy, means “separate out”
omnium gatherum: not new but useful
pencil blocks: very thin towers in Kowloon built on old plots
paper streets: planned but never built, they turn up on maps
phoenix oak: It was blown down but shoots grew out of the trunk.
pretzel logic: Like trying to make people moral by attacking a 19th century biologist
iceberg homes: 90% underground
deadstock: from 30s warehouses
spectrality (Goth expert on BBC Breakfast)
thumb drive: memory stick
les ruelles de Marseillesarts-faculty science (Professor Steve Jones on science without experiments)
supervillain ranting (Fred Scharmen)
medicinal morality (Virginia Woolf)

More here, and links to the rest.