Wednesday 4 August 2010

Word of the day

Today's word is sandpit as a verb, as in the expression "We are sandpitting a Facebook site for the library." It means trying something out - having a go, in the Australian idiom. Oddly, this extremely useful neologism is less used than one might have thought. Most of the uses relate to small holes in glass or other surfaces, caused by sand, or to rectangular constructions filled with sand for children to play in.

Wikipedia uses the term sandbox, and refers to its use in relation to software development. It is possible that sandbox is a US usage, although I have found it in Australia as well - at the University of New England Library, for example. Uses of the term such as that at www.sandpit.edna.edu.au have been discontinued, sadly. The sound of happy technophiles playing in the edna sandpit is no longer heard.

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