Among the New Words

THIS INSTALLMENT IS THE WORK of the students in Megan Melançon's ENGL 4116/5116 in the fall of 2002. In Melançon's estimation, the result is a hodgepodge of words, since the collection reflects the students' passions and interests, as well as our current preoccupations.

In regard to our previous preoccupations, the chair of our department got some feedback on NETWALLAH ("Among the New Words," American Speech 77 [2002]: 320) from C18-L, the listserv for eighteenth-century literature specialists that provided our citation for the term. Kevin Berland wants everyone to know that the C18-L Archives (http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=c18-l) turns up NETWALLAH "in a string of fanciful titles appended to [his] signature to a message about interdisciplinarity" on 16 April 1996.

As for FLOCKED (in this issue), the French half of us took considerable delight that this word has spread beyond southern Louisiana, where it has been used for many years. Churches started the practice with a pun intended on flocking—get the joke? Church members flock someone's yard, and then the victim has to give money to get the flamingos out of his or her yard. What a creative way to extort money from the faithful! The problem (in Baton Rouge and New Orleans at least) is that people actually like having flamingos in their yards. But in that area of the world, the term cheesy yard art is taken to be a compliment of the highest order.

Cheesy yard art leads us from artless extortion to food and then drink. Our distaste for the decadence exhibited by the $100 HAMBURGER pilots was slightly mitigated by the participation of some of these pilots in a nonprofit group called Angel Flight, wherein volunteer pilots fly people who are both desperately ill and broke to large medical centers. Coffee, as we all know, has been getting much too complicated, but some of us are disturbed by the notion of coffee machines that can call for service on their own. Whatever your feelings, E-ESPRESSOPOINT is coming soon to an office near you. While waiting for the coffee to brew, you can check the weather, traffic, e-mail your loved ones, or spam your enemies.

From the same coffee machine, you could learn what pyongyangologists are saying about the touchy situation between the two Koreas, especially in light of North Korea's recent disclosure concerning its nuclear weapons program. From a linguistic standpoint, we can sympathize completely with the (apparently) botched translation of the finance minister's speech mentioned in the citation. He actually sounded very C. S. Lewis-ish for a moment there. By the way, try saying Pyongyangologist three times quickly.

And finally, we were considerably amused when we visited the Web site for NEUTICLES and noticed that, in addition to clothing and other Neuticles paraphernalia, the site also sells ball caps.

Contributors of citations for this installment include Adele Algeo, John Algeo, George Cole, Ludwig Deringer, Michael Melançon, and Frank Nuessel. We thank them for their generosity and dedication. We could not do our work without them.

ba-da-bing n Certain appeal or attractiveness 1990 Feb 5 ADWEEK np (Lexis-Nexis) In one spot, Irerra explains the use of the all-purpose Italian phrase, "Ba da boom. Ba da bing." We use it for everything. 2001 Apr 24 Maureen Dowd Harrisburg (Pa) Patriot News A11/5 Andrew Cuomo calls stereotypes "insidious," but they've got box-office ba-da-bing. 2002 Sept 13 Barbara Vancheri Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 34 (Lexis-Nexis; head) FIRST THREE SEASONS [of The Sopranos] ARE BOXED WITH BEHIND-THE-SCENES BA-DA-BING

Baskerville effect; Hound of the Baskervilles effect n [from Arthur Conan Doyle'...