A.Word.A.Day --wegotism

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Oct 30, 2017

This week’s theme
Blend words

This week’s words
wegotism
freemium
mediocracy
chillax
slacktivism

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

Attorney Ross Pringle (rpringle w-g.com) wrote:
“A client of mine, upset, angry, and on edge during a contentious deposition lasting several hours, confessed to being extremely ‘flustrated’ by the process. So was I. This was the same fellow who, having answered formal written questions called interrogatories early in the lawsuit, suggested the lawyer look at our answers to the ‘inderogatories’. They were.”

Thanks for sharing the story of your client. He’s only human. As we all are. If your client keeps it up, he may some day be honored to have a word coined after him as some others have (see spoonerism).

What your client is doing is forming portmanteaus or blend words. It’s a common method of coining product names (Wikipedia: wiki + encyclopedia).

In this week’s A.Word.A.Day we’ll see five portmanteaus.

wegotism

PRONUNCIATION:

(WEE-guh-tiz-uhm)

MEANING:

noun: The habit of using “we” when referring to oneself.

ETYMOLOGY:

A blend of we + egotism. Earliest documented use: 1797. Also see nosism, royal we, and illeist.

USAGE:

“Dennis’s wegotism became ridiculous when he said, after someone stepped on his toes, ‘We don’t like people stepping on our toes.’”
Rod L. Evans; Thingamajigs and Whatchamacallits; Perigee; 2011.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation. -Ezra Pound, poet (30 Oct 1885-1972)

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