Lately, I’ve been seeing the word “clickbait.” Is it something I was supposed to bite down on? Since I do a writing prompt on Thursday, “clickbait” will be the word I use.
I usually like new words, but sometimes it takes me a while to get used to them. Other times, I never do. For example, I’ve known the word “webinar” for years. It’s a logical blend of “web” and “seminar,” but I just can’t bring myself to like it.
The word “blog” is a blend of “web” and “log,” but I don’t mind it at all, and I’m also quite comfortable with its twin, “vlog.” I do have to wonder though, is a picture blog called a “plog?” I just looked it up, and according to Wiktionary, it was a real word in Old English, meaning “the measure of land that can be ploughed in one day.” Very cool, but nothing at all like a web log consisting entirely of pictures! I guess I’ll call that a photo blog, which I think I have heard before. Let’s not call it a “flog;” that would be too much like beating ourselves up.
In about 2002, the word “selfie” was born. I don’t plan to post any on here, but I do like the word. What I like even better is what Apple did a year or so ago: they took the words “slo-mo” and “selfie,” and turned the whole thing into a “slofie!” I remember I was reading live on MacRumors, and they said something like, “Slofie, yes, really.”
I was thinking of the word we use meaning to make up new words: “coin.” According to Wiktionary, it does have to do with money, and is an extension of the literal meaning of making coins. At first, I couldn’t think what words had to do with money, but they do; they’re the currency of information, just like cash is the stuff of getting bread and butter.
Now for that newly-minted word, “clickbait.” Before I bite into it, I’d better look it up and make sure I know exactly what I’m getting my teeth into.
Yuck! It tasted like a noun, the insulation on wires, a verb, and a poor-quality website with lots of ads all baked together at 350 F and put in the fridge for fourteen minutes. Gross.
I do kind of like the word, but the concept sucks. Give me a webinar any day, just call it something else, like an online seminar.
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