tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61470278279590132202024-02-25T07:44:41.014+11:00Derek's ALIA BlogDerek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-5840154871471559172016-12-17T16:13:00.001+11:002016-12-17T16:13:18.025+11:00Word of the Day - InvisibilisedI was watching the television news last week, and was intrigued to hear Professor Rosalind Croucher, the head of the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC), use the word invisibilised. The ALRC is conducting an enquiry into elder abuse, and has just issued a discussion paper on the topic, according to the ABC News.
Professor Croucher was being interviewed in connection with a Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-83789346405822570482010-08-13T10:46:00.000+10:002010-08-13T10:46:30.168+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is lawyer up, a verb, and thank you to Professor Rob Moodie, a health educationalist and chairman of Melbourne Storm, for the term. Rob was speaking (as a Surrey Hills resident) at a breakfast in aid of Foundation Boroondara, a charitable organisation in this area.
The term lawyer up comes to us, like so many useful terms relating to the practice of law, from the United States. Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-26665846274054347112008-06-30T12:28:00.001+10:002008-06-30T12:28:00.627+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is gossipsize, and thank you to Dilbert for this one. In fact, this looks like a Dilbert original, and others clearly think so too - "Gossipsize: futuro neologismo? Striscia di Dilbert di ieri: Ancora una volta sono ammirata dall'incredibile flessibilità della lingua ..." As the author goes on to point out, this word is made up of the words gossip+downsize, coined by Catbert, "il Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-11854235574872179062008-06-12T11:56:00.001+10:002008-06-12T12:10:23.846+10:00Word of the dayThanks to Kathryn for creepy treehouse. There is a great definition of the term by Jared Stein, and as I read it I realised that this was a term we in the education industry need. It is said to have been coined by Chris Lott in January this year, and to be current amongst "ed techs".The definitions in Flexknowlogy (above) are "n. A place, physical or virtual (e.g. online), built by adults with Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-47582207109337763002008-06-06T11:30:00.001+10:002008-06-06T11:32:02.609+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is RLUK. Yes, it is not a word, but an acronym. And I just can't believe that my colleagues in the UK have changed their collective name from CURL (Consortium of University and Research Libraries) to RLUK (Research Libraries UK). The new name is even a phonemic anagram of the previous name. You can read all about the new organisation at their new website. Naturally, being university Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-26727013269645277152008-06-05T12:39:00.003+10:002008-06-05T12:56:17.948+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is backscatter, and thank you to Kerry Webb, of ALIA, Incite and Kerry's blog. Backscatter refers to one more category of the detritus which litters the Internet. It is those messages which you receive from systems administrators telling you that your message was undeliverable, or some such. In fact, you didn't send a message. Someone has forged your address in spam. There is a good Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-56961605803827235222008-05-11T11:46:00.006+10:002008-05-11T12:27:53.066+10:00Word of the day One of the words which arose at the IATUL Conference was reverse mentoring. As many younger people look at me pityingly when I disclose ignorance of some absolutely fundamental, axiomatic, known-to-every-child-over two technological skill, the need for this expression becomes plain. Mentoring makes sense, but it works both ways, and isn't only an older to younger (or experienced to Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-29907166622545757782008-04-26T07:09:00.004+10:002008-04-26T08:12:39.328+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is linguistic whateverism, and thank you to The Economist for this word. The last issue of The Economist included a wonderful supplement, Nomads at last, on mobile telecoms, and it has lots of perceptive and valuable things to say. But its conclusion is uncharacteristically gloomy: As language goes, so does thought. The point being that mobile telecoms have led to a decline in Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-66725393655950023302008-04-16T08:14:00.004+10:002008-04-16T17:49:15.144+10:00Word of the dayThank you to Rebecca, for wikidemia. This term is used to describe 'an academic work passed off as scholarly yet researched entirely on Wikipedia'. Brilliant, and another triumph for the Urban Dictionary, from which the definition comes.In the meantime, I'm afraid, the term appears also to have been coined to describe something else. Wikipedia now uses the word wikidemia to refer to a project Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-65059076415246713042008-04-15T16:47:00.006+10:002008-04-16T08:13:55.383+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is from Dana, who refers to Open Reading Frame, Bill Hooker's blog. Commenting on a blog post by Gavin Baker (to Open Access News), he says: "I realise that netonyms have been passé among the hipsterati for some time . . ." and makes some comments about the use of pseudonyms on the internet.But which is the word of the day? Definitely netonym I think. It is certainly a new coinage, Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-10132466144617250102008-04-06T06:57:00.003+10:002008-04-06T07:43:33.307+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is point-virgule - OK, its really semicolon, but in deference to the efforts of the French to defend it, we have used their word. The Australian reported on April 4 on a campaign to save the semicolon from extinction "because the media, authors and the French people no longer understand its use." An April Fool's Day joke reported that President Nicolas Sarkozy had created a Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-63834248945991268662008-03-20T07:40:00.000+11:002008-03-20T07:53:40.780+11:00Word of the dayToday's word is churnalism, and thanks to Lorcan Dempsey and his blog for this one. The word comes from Nick Davies's book, Flat Earth News, about the state of British journalism; here is a review in the Guardian, and another in the London Review of Books. Davies says that churnalism has replaced journalism, and defines it as pseudo events manufactured by the PR industry and news stories Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-48533122182757571152008-02-27T08:05:00.002+11:002008-02-28T08:57:42.405+11:00Word of the dayToday's word is courtesy of the past, and is the term vanity network publishing. I used (invented) this term in a paper I gave at a national conference on web publishing and legal deposit in 1995. I pointed to the plenthora of published work that was possible in an open and networked environment. I unkindly described this as vanity network publishing. I see from my Google search on the term that Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-22447000722027217532008-02-15T08:28:00.001+11:002008-02-15T08:52:24.085+11:00Word of the dayToday's word is incent, used as a verb - thanks to Dilbert, where the verb is used as a synonym for motivate - ironically, needless to say. An interesting way of creating new words is to fill in gaps in forms of speech for existing words. A long-standing noun, like incentive, can also give rise to new (or rediscovered) verbs and participles, in multiple forms - incentivise, but also incent. Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-15971194641067605572008-02-01T17:40:00.000+11:002008-02-01T17:50:05.602+11:00Word of the dayToday's word is continuous partial attention, a term used by Courtney Gibson, from the ABC, at the National Library's Innovative Ideas thing last year. Courtney Gibson was then the head of Arts, Entertainment and Comedy at ABC TV and has since moved up. She was quoting Linda Stone a decade before (in 1997) and the term appears, from an online search, to have been heavily used since then. In fact,Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-65251684482450324182008-01-23T17:41:00.000+11:002008-01-23T17:40:21.382+11:00Word of the DayThank you to Sue for today's word, which is glitching. Glitch is a common word, especially used in relation to technology, but I haven't seen it as a verb before - although according to Wikipedia it is derived from a German adjective meaning "slippery", or I guess now "glitchy", which is also pretty widely used. The context is ". . . the list seems to be glitching today." Wikipedia defines it as Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-44229104818736087912008-01-15T15:39:00.000+11:002008-01-15T15:39:25.752+11:00Word of the dayThank you to Julie for today's word, which is webinar, as featured recently in the comic strip, Unshelved. A webinar, according to the strip definition, is a seminar held on the web. Like electronic card last week, this is close to oxymoronic, like so many e-versions of analog nouns.The Wikipedia defines webinar in this way: "A webinar is a type of web conference, that tends to be mostly one-way,Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-78055393369038625382008-01-07T09:29:00.000+11:002008-01-07T09:23:36.812+11:00Word of the dayThank you to Tom for today's word, which is yo, used as a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun in place of "he" and "she". It is in an article from a journal called American Speech (2007) v.82(3):262-279 - "A new gender-neutral pronoun in Baltimore, Maryland: a preliminary study / Elaine M Stotko and Margaret Troyer. Here's an example of this new usage, from the article "Yo handin' out Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-12236103272027675942007-12-07T16:37:00.000+11:002007-12-07T17:23:40.719+11:00Word of the dayThe word of the day is ute, taken from the Oxford Australia Word of the Month for December, which is ute muster. This service provides Australian neologisms as an RSS feed, I imagine as a means of promoting the Oxford Australian Dictionary - the fact that its author is the marketing and product coordinator indicates this. The term is defined as "a gathering of utility trucks for display and Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-41812379573608717862007-10-31T09:10:00.000+11:002007-10-31T09:28:04.689+11:00Word of the dayToday's word is onboarding. This is a term from the IT industry, where it is now well-entrenched. Wikipedia defines it as "the process of interviewing, hiring, orienting and successfully integrating new hires into the organization's culture. The best onboarding strategies will provide a fast track to meaningful, productive work and strong employee relationships." As you can see, the term, like Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-40378394642511936512007-10-08T08:40:00.000+10:002007-10-08T08:20:09.151+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is Ooma. Actually, the word of the day is a class of words - neologistic proper names. Ooma is the name of an internet phone company which set up in July. There are heaps of words coined or appropriated to name new technology companies - like Oodle, Noosh, Yoomba, and also Clusty, Kajeet, Zazzle and Ziggs. Not to mention Google and Yahoo, which are not strictly neologisms.It is Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-89061253390257560912007-10-03T15:09:00.000+10:002007-10-03T15:26:58.798+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is polymath. The term came to mind when I heard Terry Cutler give a short talk last night at the AGM of CHASS (Council of Humanities and Social Sciences). In the course of deploring the every narrower specialisations that proliferate in the academic world, he referred to a book about Thomas Young, called The Last Man Who Knew Everything: Thomas Young, The Anonymous Polymath Who Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-63665022600454553432007-09-23T18:02:00.000+10:002007-09-23T17:50:11.560+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is backtoback, a verb. I have been at several meetings over the past week, and hence the relative silence on this blog. CAUL met on 20 and 21 September, and there were a few meetings backtobacked onto it, so that many of us arrived in Adelaide on Wednesday 19th. In fact, there is a tendency whenever a conference or meeting running for more than a day is planned, to extend the Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-5796257724465243342007-09-16T17:53:00.000+10:002007-09-16T18:24:48.165+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is citation farm, from Lorcan Dempsey's blog, on 20 August, but I just came across it. Lorcan was responding to discussion about why he posted to a blog, rather than publishing in the library literature - "a very specific set of journals and organizations", he suggests. "The literature is a citation farm for those involved in formal research activity, and in the US, a necessary Derek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6147027827959013220.post-74859941240225451692007-09-10T08:05:00.000+10:002007-09-10T09:00:51.996+10:00Word of the dayToday's word is new normal, or new normalcy, as explained by Barry Jones in his piece in the Australian Higher Education section last week. He quoted Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States, as saying in October 2001: "Many of the steps we have now been forced to take will become permanent in American life, part of a 'new normalcy' that reflects an understanding of the world as it isDerek Whiteheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13998830708231021495noreply@blogger.com0