January 30, 2004
Igry all over
Criminy!
I generally have no interest in the cute coinages people keep coming up with, usually by blending two other words to achieve some strained and unnecessary meaning: beducation or whatever. Every once in a while, though, somebody invents a word that meets a hitherto unrealized need; such a word was Walpole's "serendipity" (first written down in a letter of January 28, 1754, exactly 250 years ago today!), and such a word (or prospective word) is "igry".
Read more. A mini-controversy regarding usage pops up in the middle of the post, which I address in a comment down at the bottom of the page. Spin-off posts are here and here. Not quite a meme yet, but getting there!
Also, at long last, if you search for "igry" on Google, pages about the coinage come out on top, instead of the slew of Slavic pages one used to get.
Posted by Francis at 01:49 AMSo apparently there's a recent coinage with a near-opposite meaning to igry (insofar as a noun can be the opposite of an adjective):
Boobenfreude (n) The feeling one gets when a celebrity makes an ass of themselves, and you are glad you are not them, e.g. when Janet Jackson bared her breast at the Superbowl halftime show. Alternatively, also used to describe the feelings of superiority that well up inside when a celebrity or politician acts like a fool, and does not realize it.
Posted by: David. at February 4, 2004 07:58 PM