New Words for 2009

Last year, the Word of the Year was W00T. A favorite of gamers, it had 15 minutes of fame and vanished.  This year, there seem to be more words for a tanking economy and social networking.

Frolleagues are the people who are both colleagues and friends. I’m not sure we need a new word for that relationship, but I’m not the approver of new words.

Frugalista is the penny-pinching sister of the fashionista.

Mousepotato is the reinvention of the computer-savvy couch potato. Hmm, I think that’s sooo 2006.

Bromance is the deep friendship, platonic, between two men who are not gay.

Hypermiling is how you save gas when it costs north of $4.00 a gallon. Take the foot off the gas and coast to a light, pull in a parking space so you don’t need to backup, go the speed limit on the freeways. There are more extreme measures, but doing a few simple things boosted my gas mileage from 24 mpg in the city to 28 mpg.

Spendy is a new word for expensive.

Helppooling or Cowpooling is sharing large shopping items among a group of non-family members.

Brickberry is an old version of a cellphone. One that doesn’t have the cool features.

Twitterrhea is waaaaay too much Twitter.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who teaches business communications and journal writing. She loves words, old and new, as long as they are clever.