Words of the year

Some highlights from the BBC's E-cyclopedia's glossary of 2003.

Governator - term for the new governor of California.

Kippers - kids in parents' pockets exhausting retirement savings.

Mark 7 and 8 Mammal Marine Systems - dolphins, as used by Allied forces.

Sitcom - single income, two children, oppressive mortgage. The fate of yuppies when they have children and one stops working to stay home.

2002 and 2001 are pretty good too.  Best ones from there include:

Percussive maintenance - striking a recalcitrant piece of computer hardware in order to facilitate a successful reboot, and repeating as necessary.

Snoutcasts - people who are banished from their workplace because of their smoking habit and huddle around outside doorways.

404 - someone who's clueless. From WWW error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.

"Weblog" appeared in the 2001 list and "blogger" in the 2002 list.  Funny how things go mainstream.  "Muggle" (non-wizard) is rumoured to be in the next Oxford English dictionary, from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series.  In the 2001 list, psychologist John Grohol said "The majority ... are not all that interesting."  Grohol has had a weblog since 1999, draw your own conclusions.