That Should Be a Word : A Language Lover's Guide to Choregasms, Povertunity, Brattling, and 250 Other Much-Needed Terms for the Modern World
(eBook)

English

Finally there's a word for it: Fidgital-excessively checking one's devices. Martyrmony-staying married out of duty. Author of the highly popular "That Should Be a Word" feature in the New York Times Magazine, Lizzie Skurnick delights word lovers with razor-sharp social commentary delivered via clever neologisms. That Should Be a Word is a compendium of 244 of Skurnick's wittiest wordplays-more than half of them new-arranged in ingenious diagrams detailing their interrelationships. Complete with definitions, pronunciations, usage examples, and illustrations, That Should Be a Word features words on our obsession with food: carbiter-one who asserts that someone else cannot be hungry. On social media, like twiticule-to mock someone in 140 characters. On the modern family, like brattle-to discuss one's children at great length, which leads to words like spamily-Facebook or Twitter updates about kids-and spawntourage-a group of approaching strollers. From highlighting the profound financial anxiety of a post-recession society (bangst) to mocking the hyper-vain celebrity circle that abstains from anything of import (celebracy), That Should Be a Word delves deep into all the most humorous, and maddening, aspects of life in the 21st century.--Provided by publisher.