Evoiding pedestrian ways
If you've been evoided by a podestrian, face-mailed by the boss or body-spammed by your Aunt Ethel, don't worry. You aren't alone. It's just another day in meatspace.
People have been coming up with new words for a long time. But the Internet may be shifting the balance, not just in terms of creating words to describe our tech-dominated lives, but in making these new words spread fast -- and stick.
Aaron Peckham runs a Web site called Urbandictionary.com that collects new words. So far, he says, thousands of users have submitted 1.5 million words. Now, Urbandictionary is moving from the ether world to the real world: It will be published as a book this month.
Mr. Peckham isn't alone in charting aspects of this word avalanche. By day, Grant Barrett works at Random House on the "Historical Dictionary of American Slang." By night, he runs a Web site called Double-Tongued Word Wrester (
www.doubletongued.org) where he tries to define and cite the usage of new words he finds online -- what he calls "down and dirty lexicography." He, too, is working on a book collecting his definitions, and it's due out early next year. Among recent entries: "gotcha day" -- the day or anniversary of the arrival of an adopted child (or pet) into the care of an adopting family.
Then there is Paul Jarvis who set up pseudodictionary (
www.pseudodictionary.com) four years ago to reflect the language of the Internet's nascent blogging community, "a whole subculture with its own slang," he says. The site has just passed 20,000 words made up by users, most of them a triumph of hope over catchiness. (An "alcam" is the hole in a pencil sharpener; a "ralpef" the stand on a picture frame.)
Such words aside, it remains something of a mystery why some words make it out of the ghettos -- online or offline -- and into the mainstream. "We know the mechanics. And we have a general understanding of why they succeed," says Random House's Mr. Barrett. "But there are so many examples of words that just catch on, or fail, inexplicably, that it's hard to make all the rules for word success wrap around all the different cases." One reason, he suggests, is because a word captures an idea or something that is itself entering the mainstream. "It isn't so much that words are proliferating faster, but that if they have the characteristics that tend to define successful words, then they will leave the small group where they started faster." One example: "sudoku," a Japanese number puzzle that has exploded in popularity in the English-speaking world since it appeared in British newspapers a year ago.
Many other words on Web sites such as Urbandictionary convey how much technology has intruded into our lives, forcing us to make room -- and words -- to accommodate it. "Podestrian," for instance, describes someone walking down the street, the trademark white cables dangling from their ears giving away the Apple iPod music player they are listening to. "Evoid" is the use of technology -- an iPod, a cellphone -- for the sole purpose of avoiding human contact.
Indeed, many new words reflect the odd interpersonal situations that arise out of this new world. "Email crossing," for example, is when an email you send someone crosses with an email they sent you, creating two strands of a conversation that duplicate each other.
Words that originated online have started to define life offline, illustrating the shift in descriptive emphasis: Think "snail mail." Or "face mail," a pseudodictionary word that refers to "the daring act of talking to someone in person instead of either leaving a voice mail or sending an email." While spam -- a word purloined from British comedy troupe Monty Python to describe unwanted junk email -- has now crossed back to describe other real world phenomena, such as unsolicited physical contact ("body spam") and the blanketing of ads on telephone poles and other public areas ("street spam").
Not all of these words will catch on. But the rise of these popular lexicographical Web sites illustrates the interest ordinary people have in words and what they mean. (That none of the lexicographers behind them is over the age of 35 hints that cataloging this linguistic growth isn't the preserve of musty old academics, either.) As life changes, our need grows for new words to describe these new experiences and things. As the Internet extends its reach so will our ability to find and share those new words. We may not remember all of them, or even use them, but we'll know where to find them if we need them. In short, as Mr. Barrett at Random House puts it: "The world can take every word we throw at it."
Oh, and "meatspace" is what people who spend too much time in cyberspace call the real world. And yes, it's catching on: It already has its own entry in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
网络生活催生新式词汇
如果有一个“ podestrian ”在路上“ evoid ”你，老板与你“ face-mail ”或者遭遇埃塞尔 (Ethel) 姑妈的“ body-spam ”，别担心，碰上这些情况的不只你一个人，这只是在“ meatspace ”的又一天而已。
长期以来，人们一直在不断地创造新词。但是，互联网或许将要改变新词传统的应用模式，不仅仅使其用于技术领域，而且也在推动这些新词迅速普及，最终成为人们的常用词汇。
派克曼 (Aaron Peckham) 经营著一家名为 Urbandictionary.com 的网站，这个网站是专门收集新词的。他说，截至现在，已经有几千个用户提交了 150 万个新词。如今 Urbandictionary 即将从虚幻的网络世界走到现实当中：它将在这个月把这些新词集结出书。
在这方面派克曼绝非在孤军奋战。白天，巴洛特 (Grant Barrett) 为 Random House 编制《美国俚语历史辞典》 (Historical Dictionary of American Slang) 。到了晚上，他经营一家名为 Double-Tongued Word Wrester(
www.doubletongued.org) 的网站，试图为他在网上发现的新词定义并给出使用范例。他也在将这些词语汇集成册，计划明年初出版。最近收集进去的一个条目是“ gotcha day ”──指小孩（或宠物）进入被收养家庭的日子或周年纪念日。
另外，杰沃斯 (Paul Jarvis) 在 4 年前开设了网站
www.pseudodictionary.com ，吸收了互联网新兴的博客一族的用词。他说，这是一个拥有自己的行话的亚文化群。该网站刚刚通过了用户创造的两万个词汇，其中大部分新词都有望流行起来。
至于一些新词是如何从异类（无论网上还是网下）进入主流的，这还是一个谜。“我们知道这种机制，我们对于它们成功的原因有一个大致的了解，” Random House 的巴洛特说。“但是，有相当多的新词我们无从解释它们流行或没能流行起来的原因，很难把新词成功的准则套用到所有的个案中去。”他说，新词能够推广开来的一个原因是，它描述出了一个本身进入主流的观点或其他什么事物。“不是说这些新词的扩散速度更快，而是如果它们具备了能够定义出成功词汇的特征，它们就在一个小团体使用之后迅速推广开来。”举例说明， sudoku 原是日本的一种数字猜谜游戏，自从一年前出现在英国报端之后就在英语国家迅速流行起来。
Urbandictionary 等网站上的其他许多词汇反映出技术是怎样侵入我们的日常生活的，让我们不得不为它们留出空间。比如，“ Podestrian ”指的是那些在路上使用苹果 (Apple) iPod 音乐播放器听音乐的行人。“ Evoid ”指的是人们使用 iPod 、手机等新技术完全是为了避免与人交流。
实际上，许多新词反映了互联网带来的奇特的人际状况。比如，“ Email crossing ”是说当你给某人发电子邮件的同时，对方也给你发了邮件，然后你们两个人相互回复对方的邮件，而谈及的内容可能完全不同。
源自网上的一些词汇已经开始定义网下的生活，显示出新词所描述重点的转变：如 Snail mail 或 face mail ，指与人面对面谈话而不是留下语音信箱或发送电子邮件的大胆举动。而过去指垃圾邮件的 spam 现在已经借指真实世界的另外一个现象，如主动的身体接触 ( “ body spam ” ) 和电话亭及其他公共区域遍布的小广告 ( “ street spam ” ) 。
这些词并不会全都流行起来。但是，这些流行的辞典网络的兴起表明，普通人对这些词和它们的意思很感兴趣。（这些辞典编篡者的年龄均不超过 35 岁，这暗示编制这种词条目录已不是老学究的专属领域。 ) 随著生活的改变，我们需要不断地创造新词来解释这些新的经历和东西。由于互联网的普及，我们也将有能力发现和共享这些新词。或许，我们不会把它们全记住，但我们会在需要的时候知道到哪儿能找到他们。简而言之，正如 Random House 的巴洛特所说，“这个世界可以接纳我们创造出的每一个词。”
哦，对了，“ meatspace ”是那些花大量时间泡在虚拟网络的人们对现实世界的称呼。这个词现在正开始流行起来：它在网上百科全书 Wikipedia 上已经拥有了自己的条目。
