ARTICLE OF THE WEEK #1

SPRINGFIELD, Massachusetts (Achieve3000,

December 9, 2019). It's vocabulary time, so please read the
following passage, noting the italicized words and phrases as
you proceed.
Oh, That Alonso!
Alonso got a big burst of inspo on his vacay after
he unplugged and lazed around all week—he decided to
become a professional pickleball player. Alonso, you
see, imagines himself looking swole on a bluebird day,
stans everywhere, as he scores in a heart-stopper with
absolutely no garbage time on the clock. His friends all
think "how on-brand of him" to want to become a
pickleball player, considering that he joined the circus
last year. (And look how that turned out.) In all
fairness, though, how could Alonso have known that
he'd get a bad case of coulrophobia and that captive
animals would be his pain point?
Having a little trouble deciphering the italicized words
and phrases? Then look them up in the dictionary—Merriam-
Webster's (M-W) online dictionary, to be exact. You'll find
them defined, phoneticized, etymologized, and presented in
illustrative sentences, along with the hundreds of other brand-
new entries that were added in 2019.
Dictionary newbies should come as no surprise. Original
words and phrases regularly enter the lexicon through repeated
usage, and they have ever since humans gave up grunts in
favor of conversation. How could it be otherwise? Fresh ideas
and novel ways of saying things constantly arise and spread by
way of the arts, sports, commerce, the sciences, media, and
people being playful and inventive with language. And if these
words and phrases catch on in a big way, the editors of the M-
W dictionary will doubtlessly spot them in the ample reading
materials they peruse in order to find potential entries. That's
exactly what happened to the italicized terms in the passage
you just read above.
Some of the new entries are simply cutesy truncations of
more traditional words—inspo is short for inspiration,
vacay for vacation, and swole for swollen, although the latter
means very muscular, not puffy. Some entries provide new
definitions for old words, like unplugged, which, in the latest
sense, means taking a temporary break from using your
computer, smartphone, and other electronic devices. Other
entries name new phenomena or vogues, like pickleball, a
tennis-like sport that involves short-handled paddles, a net,
and a perforated plastic ball.
 Speaking of sports, garbage time refers to the near-end of
an athletic competition when it's obvious who the winner's
going to be, so the remainder of the game is a big
nothingburger, (a word that has not yet met the M-W criteria).
If the game is incredibly exciting, however, you're a spectator
at a heart-stopper. And if a picture-perfect, cloudless sky
happens to be over the stadium at the time, then it's a bluebird
day.

New words can come from all quarters—psychologists

minted coulrophobia, which, believe it or not, means an
abnormal fear of clowns. The world of finance is responsible
for two of the new terms in the passage: on-brand, meaning in
keeping with a particular brand, image, or persona, and pain
point, which is a recurring turnoff people feel about a product
or service. And even the world of music is represented in the
new entries. The word stan, meaning a rabid fan, originated in
a rap song by Eminem back in 2000.

So, now that you know the meanings of the italicized

terms in the passage, feel free to reread it to see if it all makes
sense. If you think you got the picture and your inner word-
nerd has been activated, check out M-W's supercool "Time
Traveler" feature, which tells you when a word first appeared
in print, from before the 12th century and on. But be warned:
The list is extensive as English is a vibrant, ever-expanding
language—so you'll need more than one sesh (noun: informal
for session) to get through it all.

Thought Question: Only full-length words should appear in a dictionary. Why or why not?
Write a PEEL paragraph in the space below and highlight in the proper colors.