Editor's Corner

Happy Halloween!

It’s one of my favorite times of the year: Autumn, and in particular, Halloween. From the Ghost Glossary at Thesaurus.com, I have some Halloweenish words for you, and there are many more on the website.

Ghosts are spirits of the dead, often imagined as floating or moving around in a wispy, immaterial form. The word ghost developed from the Old English gast, which means “soul, spirit, life, breath.”

Ghosts are common in folklore around the world, and there are many different names for them:

• spirit: A general synonym for a ghost, spirit can also be used in terms for ghosts that haunt a specific place or that have a specific characteristic. For example, you can have a forest spirit that haunts the woods or a vengeful spirit that’s out for revenge.
• specter: Sometimes used to refer to an especially scary ghost, the word specter comes from the Latin word spectrum, meaning “appearance.” Specters are spirits that you can see.
• apparition: A supernatural thing that appears suddenly, like a ghost. An apparition may or may not be the spirit of a person. You could see the apparition of a horse, a ship, or an entire battle scene, for example.
• wraith: A wraith is a ghostly version of a living person whose appearance is thought to signal their imminent death.
• phantom, phantasm: A spirit or apparition, a phantom or phantasm is especially prone to appearing and disappearing suddenly.
• revenant: The spirit of a person that has returned after death. In other words, a revenant is another word for a ghost.
• shade, shadow: Both shade and shadow are poetic synonyms for ghost. Shade is sometimes specifically used to refer to spirits of the dead in the underworld as imagined in ancient Greek and Roman mythology.
• Gremlin:Refers to an invisible creature known for wreaking havoc in machinery, especially airplanes. The term is first recorded in the late 1920s, and it may be related to the word goblin, but its origin is unknown. In popular culture, the appearance of gremlins varies widely.
• Goblin: A small, ugly creature known for harassing humans. The word goblin comes from the Middle High German word kobold, which refers to a mischievous creature or spirit that haunts houses or mines (the name of the metal cobalt comes from the same word—from the miners’ belief that malicious goblins placed it in the silver ore). In popular culture, goblins are often depicted as tiny, cunning minions of evil or wild and dangerous tricksters.

• cacodemon: To the ancient Greeks, an evil demon, or a cacodemon, is the opposite of a good spirit or angel (called a eudemon).
• eidolon: A phantom or apparition. In the Iliad, an eidolon was a shapeshifting spirit that took the appearance of Helen of Troy and, in some versions of the story, may have even caused the Trojan War.
• banshee: In Irish folklore, a spirit in the form of a wailing woman who appears to or is heard by members of a family as a sign that one of them is about to die. Banshees are especially known for their horrifying scream (the “cry of the banshee”).
• dybbuk: In Jewish mythology, a dybukk is a ghost of a dead sinner that seeks to possess a living person. According to the stories, a dybbuk can only be removed through a religious exorcism.
• jinn: In Islamic mythology, a jinn (popularly known as a genie) is a spirit that influences humans to be good or evil. In popular culture, they are often portrayed as super powerful magical creatures who grant wishes (which often turn out much differently than the wisher intended).
• doppelgänger: A ghostly double or counterpart of a living person. The word doppelgänger comes from a German term literally (and spookily) meaning “double-walker.”

Don’t forget, if you want to read more about ghosts, goblins, and bogeymen, see the full article here.

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good morning, and welcome to another beautiful Thursday.

I love it when my grammar resource sites provide me with unusual lists of words, which MSN did recently. They sent me (and millions of other people) a list called “10 Words That Don’t Mean What You Think They Do.” Ah, just my cup of tea! Some of these might be surprising to you, so read on and enjoy.

1. Contingency: There’s no such thing as "a contingency of experts," "of French chefs," "of Chinese ministers," or the like. A contingency is something that might happen ("We must prepare for every contingency"). A group of people is a contingent.

2. Disinterested: If you’re not interested in something, you’re uninterested. "Disinterested" means that you have no direct stake in something, financially or in some other sense. A judge in a courtroom should always be disinterested in the proceedings, though they may interest [the judge] very much.

3. Exhibit: If you go to the museum to see a Picasso exhibit, you’re just seeing one painting or print or whatever. An exhibit is a single item. Think "Exhibit A." An exhibition is a whole collection of exhibits, which is probably what drew you to the museum.

4. Flagrant: People use "flagrant" to mean obvious, as in "a flagrant error" or "a flagrant invitation." It means something stronger than that, though—not just obvious but particularly offensive or objectionable. The aforementioned error and invitation are more correctly "blatant."

5. Further: San Francisco isn’t further from New York than Boston is and you didn’t run further than you should—it’s "farther" in both cases. "Farther" refers to physical distance, "further" to non-physical or metaphorical ones ("Let’s not take this argument any further.”)

6. Infamous: This adjective gets applied to all kinds of things these days—"The restaurant’s infamous chocolate cake," "The team’s infamous victory over their rivals," and so on—when what people actually mean is "famous" or "celebrated." "Infamous" isn’t a compliment: It means disgraceful or having a bad reputation.

7. Insure: You can’t insure that something bad won’t happen. You can insure yourself—that is, buy insurance—so that you’ll be compensated if something bad does, but what you want to try to do is ensure that something bad won’t happen. "Ensure" means to guarantee or make certain; "insure" means to buy insurance or otherwise indemnify.

8. Notorious: See "infamous," above. "Notorious" sometimes gets used in the same way ("The restaurant’s notorious chocolate cake.") But it doesn’t just mean famous—it means famous in a bad way, or known unfavorably.

9. Penultimate: This is the penultimate word in this list. And, no, it’s not the last one. The last word is the ultimate one; "pen-" is a Latin prefix meaning "almost," and "penultimate" means second-to-last.

10. Tortuous: It sounds like something that tortures you, but that would actually be "torturous." "Tortuous" means winding or twisting, like a road that curves up a mountainside.

Donna Bradley Burcher |Technical Editor, Advisory | jack henry™

Pronouns she/her/hers

9660 Granite Ridge Drive, San Diego CA 92123

Symitar Documentation Services

About Editor’s Corner

Editor’s Corner keeps your communication skills sharp by providing information on grammar, punctuation, JHA style, and all things English. As editors, we spend our days reading, researching, and revising other people’s writing. We love to spend a few extra minutes to share what we learn with you and keep it fun while we’re doing it.

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Happy Tuesday, folks!

Today I want to talk to you about something personal: taking a shower. Yes, believe it or not, this is a quick and dirty English lesson about a term I learned from Donna a few weeks ago: shower orange. She wrote about it and a bunch of other new terms here in Editor’s Corner. I got distracted and disgusted with the term nepo baby, so today I’m back-tracking to the term I liked, farther down in her article.

Today, I’d like to revisit shower orange. No, it is not about how you get orange face paint off after dressing as a jack-o-lantern for Halloween. Nor is it about a women’s prison, Orange Is the New Black. Lastly, nor is it about how Mom dressed my brother and me in orange foul weather gear stuffed with newspaper to look like pumpkins in the Seattle showers. (Yes, trick-or-treating during Seattle Halloweens required a costume and a backup costume, depending on the weather and the never-ending desire for candy.)

According to Dictionary.com, a shower orange is:

an orange that is peeled and eaten under a steamy shower, the purported benefit being that the steam enhances the orange’s citrusy fragrance and creates a soothing experience for the person who is showering:

Example: I’ve been enjoying the aromatherapy of shower oranges for years—and I also appreciate the easy cleanup!

I did some further research on this, because mixing bathing and eating sounds messy. On the website Facets of Lafayette, they say:

You can reuse citrus peels, such as lemon or lime, as aromatherapy in the shower by storing the peels in a freezer and pulling out a few as needed. Once you turn the hot water on, place the frozen peels on the bottom of the shower floor to defrost and release their powerful scents to help elevate your mood and awaken your senses.

This sounds a bit tidier, plus it is good reuse, especially if your city collects greens each week for composting and you keep them in the freezer already. If food in the shower sound gross, but you want some aromatherapy, I also learned about shower melts from Facets of Lafayette. These are “a shower version of bath bombs that will make your shower feel more luxurious. Also known as shower steamers, fizzies, or soothers, which are sure to pack a serious punch of in-shower aromatherapy.”

For those of you that aren’t in a perpetual drought like we are in Southern California, you’ll have to let me know if you have a favorite fruit or fizzy for bathing time!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Hello, folks.

Today I’m rehashing some old rules, but they require rehashing because so many people ignore them <sigh>. I’ll try to provide you with the primary details so as not to overwhelm. Today’s topic is quotation marks.

You may ask yourself, “What’s the big deal?” My response is, “Use them correctly and it’s not a big deal.” But I see them used incorrectly all the time and it leads to confusion. Here are some examples:

Incorrect: ‘Joe told me that Marcus would be at his party.’

Incorrect: At the ‘Adjustment?’ prompt, type ‘01’.

Go ahead and have a look and see if you can figure out why these are incorrect, then we’ll get to the rules and the correct way to write them.

First rule: In our documentation, you will most often use double quotes. I suspect programming has different rules, but our rule is that if you want to quote something, you use double quotes.

Example: One of my favorite funny quotes from Jack Handy is “Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.”

Second rule: In U.S. English, “punctuation such as commas, periods, question marks, and exclamation marks (generally) go inside quotation marks.” (GrammarBook.com) For the exceptions, this is a great document: How to Punctuate Quotations.

Example: Jameela asked, “What are we having for lunch today?”

Third rule: When you are using quotation marks to emphasize a term or expression that’s different from standard use, you use double quotation marks the first time you use the term, and then drop the quotation marks the next time you use the term in a sentence.

Examples (from GrammarBook.com):

• I just spoke with my "buddy," the IRS agent assigned to my audit.
• At this real estate firm, that contract is what we call a "dealio."

Fourth rule: When you have a quotation within a quotation, it is okay to use single quotes for the inner quotation. There are more rules to this piece, but most of you won’t be writing quotes within quotes, so let’s look at an example and stop there.

Example: “I can’t believe Nils said, ‘I refuse to do it!’ when I asked him to change his shirt.”

I’m going to stop there, and go through the incorrect examples, and tell you why they are wrong.

Incorrect: ‘Joe told me that Marcus would be at his party.’

No single quotations marks for quotations (unless it is a quotation within a quotation).

Incorrect: At the ‘Adjustment?’ prompt, type ‘01’.

No single quotation marks because the information is already bolded to stand out; and by the way, the period should be inside the quotation marks. The way this is written is confusing.

Sam is worried that he has single quotation marks!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good day to you! Today I bequeath you the last installment of new words added to the dictionary for 2023. In my last two posts, I shared the following categories of words:

· Pop Culture and Slang and Artificial Intelligence

· Modern Problems and Science and Tech

For those of you feeling a little disconcerted because some of the words I previously shared have been added, maybe it will make you feel better if you think about words you used in your adolescence that drove your parents crazy. Some of those words may have made it into the dictionary too, and aren’t you glad they did?

· From the 1950s: brainwashing, fast food, UFO, moisturizer

· From the 1960s: junk food, fanny pack, repurpose, head-trip

· From the 1970s: granola, dorky, fintech, transgender

· From the 1980s: voice mail, comb-over, yuppie, emo

· From the 1990s: man cave, buzzkill, snark, website, emoji

· From the 2000s: binge-watch, unfriend, rogue, staycation

· From the 2010s: mansplain, deadname, hashtag, glamping

This time, I’m going to share some of the new words from the following categories: Health and Wellness and Identity and Relationships.

Health and Wellness

· decision fatigue (noun)

Mental and emotional exhaustion resulting from excessive or relentless decision-making, especially the cumulative effect of small decisions that one makes throughout each day.

· doctor shop (verb)

To obtain prescriptions for a controlled substance from more than one healthcare practitioner at a time.

· coffee nap (noun)

A short nap, usually 15–30 minutes, taken immediately after drinking a cup of coffee, the claimed benefit being that the energizing effect of caffeine may be bolstered by a sleeping body’s drop in adenosine levels.

· sleep debt (noun)

The difference between the amount of sleep a person needs and the actual amount of time spent sleeping, when the amount needed exceeds the time slept.

· stress eating (noun)

Emotional eating, especially in response to stress, tension, or anxiety.

· intermittent fasting (noun)

A pattern of eating that involves regular short periods of fasting, such as by limiting food intake to a certain period of the day or to fewer meals on certain days of the week.

Identity and Relationships [dbb – There were a lot of these; to see the full list go to
Dictionary.com.]

· grandfamily (noun)

A family in which one or more children live with and are raised by their grandparent or grandparents.

· kinkeeping (noun)

The labor involved in maintaining and enhancing family ties, including organizing social occasions, remembering birthdays, sending gifts, etc.

· diverse-owned (adjective)

A business owned by someone who is part of a group historically underrepresented in entrepreneurship, such as women, ethnic or racial minorities, LGBTQ+ people, etc.

· box braids (noun)

A hairstyle originating among Black people, in which the hair is parted into small squares or other shapes over the scalp and the hair from each section is woven into a braid.

· CODA (abbreviation, noun)

Child of deaf adult/adults: a hearing person with a deaf parent or parents.

· gay marry (verb)

To marry a person of the same gender.

· amalgagender (adjective)

Noting or relating to a person whose gender identity is linked to or impacted by the fact that they are intersex.

· stealth (adjective)

(of a transgender person) Living as a cisgender member of one’s identified gender, without revealing that one is transgender.

· autoromantic (adjective)

Noting or relating to a person who primarily feels romantic attraction to and desire for themselves, as opposed to other people.

Enjoy the day today!

Donna Bradley Burcher |Technical Editor, Advisory | jack henry™

Pronouns she/her/hers

9660 Granite Ridge Drive, San Diego CA 92123

Symitar Documentation Services

About Editor’s Corner

Editor’s Corner keeps your communication skills sharp by providing information on grammar, punctuation, JHA style, and all things English. As editors, we spend our days reading, researching, and revising other people’s writing. We love to spend a few extra minutes to share what we learn with you and keep it fun while we’re doing it.

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Hello readers,

A few weeks ago, before our friend, Ron Fauset, retired, he sent this. He is gone, but not forgotten. You can hear his snark as he both asks and answers this question, including the table below. This is more for the credit union crowd and Symitar users, but it’s good advice.

I hope you are having fun, Ron, wherever you are!

Dear Editrix:

I attended a meeting where the term “PowerOns” was thrown about. For me, this is like nails on a chalkboard. (For you younger people, ask your grandparents what a chalkboard is.)

I’m sure that all of you are familiar with Microsoft® Excel®. Excel is the application name. We create Excel workbooks or spreadsheets regularly. When we refer to these workbooks or spreadsheets, we don’t refer to them as Excels. We can say, “Use Excel to create spreadsheets” or “I created an Excel spreadsheet.” You would not say, “I created an Excel.”

Likewise, PowerOn is the application name. We use PowerOn to create specfiles or definition files, etc. We do not create PowerOns. We do not run a PowerOn. We can say, “Use PowerOn to create specfiles” or “I created a PowerOn specfile.” You would not say, “I created a PowerOn.”

If you say, I created RepGens, well, you are just dating yourself and we have nothing further to discuss except your impending retirement.

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Hello and good morning.

The other day I got a little warm and fuzzy with my talk about autumn, my favorite season. Today, we’re going to do a psychological evaluation of people who love the time of year when it starts getting cold and plants start dying. I’m just kidding. I don’t apologize for my love of the fall.

But I am here for something a little more serious today: rules. Yes, you may find yourself looking at an article or a business newsletter and wonder about capitalization of seasons because sometimes you see Autumn, sometimes you see spring, and other times it is Winter. Here are the basic rules for capitalizing seasons.

From Thesaurus.com:

Generally, when you’re using the name of a season in a sentence as a noun or an adjective, it shouldn’t be capitalized. The names of the seasons—spring, summer, fall/autumn, and winter—are common nouns rather than proper nouns. This means they use lowercase letters as in the words afternoon and month rather than uppercase letters as in Friday or August.

There are only a few times when seasons should be capitalized, including when they’re used as proper nouns, when they start a sentence or when they’re personified.

When a season is used as a common noun or adjective, it is lowercase.

• I love the cool weather that comes with autumn.
• In the winter, we occasionally have hot sunny San Diego days—it’s not uncommon to see people celebrating Christmas and wearing shorts.

The same goes for the common nouns summertime, wintertime, etc. These are also lowercased.

• The blossoms in the springtime desert are often stunning to behold.

Of course, there are exceptions. When you are writing a sentence, the first letter is capitalized, so if the seasonal word begins the sentence, it is capitalized.

• Winter came, and the townspeople were ecstatic, because this year Oprah had given each person a brand-new coat!

Another exception is when the season is used as a proper noun (describes a particular person, place, or thing). Here are a few examples from Thesaurus.com:

A season should be capitalized when it’s used as part of a proper noun as in Winter Olympics or the Winter Palace. Proper nouns also include titles of creative works, so the seasons follow the rules that govern all other nouns and adjectives when used in titles.

Some examples of this rule include the books Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, the song “Summer of ‘69” by Bryan Adams, and the 1997 film I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Lastly, in poetry and literature the season is uppercase if it is personified (giving an animal or inanimate objects the qualities of a human). For example, this passage from a poem by Charles Mair, in which Summer is being written about as a person:

Summer

We will muse on Summer‘s ploys:
How no partial gifts are hers,
But now the palms and now the firs
Are dozed with kisses balmy-sweet
From lips which breathe a pulsing heat.

One other thing I remember is that when you’re dealing with quarters or semesters in school, it is okay to use capital letters for the term Winter 2024, Spring 2024, Autumn 2025, etc. Hopefully, that is the last exception! If you ever have a question, feel free to check with one of the editors. We’re here to help. 😊

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Greetings, fellow word nerds. I have more new words to share with you today. As I mentioned last time, Dictionary.com recently published their list of words that are being added to the dictionary for 2023. Last time, I shared words in two categories: Pop Culture and Slang and Artificial Intelligence.

Today I’m going to share words from the following categories: Modern Problems and Science and Tech.

You can be the first of your friends and family to popularize these words in your community. Go on! Be a trendsetter!

Modern Problems

· greenwashing (noun)

An instance or practice of promoting or affiliating a brand, campaign, mission, etc., with environmentalism as a ploy to divert attention from policies and activities that are in fact anti-environmentalist.

The ending -washing in greenwashing and sportswashing below comes from the verb whitewash.

· sportswashing (noun)

An instance or practice of rehabilitating the bad reputation of a person, company, nation, etc., or mitigating negative press coverage with a sports event, or an appeal to unify and reconcile groups in conflict by celebrating fans’ shared love of a game.

· crypto-fascism (noun)

Secret support for fascism.

Note that crypto- is used here as a combining form meaning “hidden” or “secret,” not as a reference to cryptocurrency (which is now often referred to as crypto for short).

· sextortion (noun)

Criminal behavior in which a perpetrator illicitly obtains sexually compromising material, such as images, and then threatens to publish it or harm the victim in other ways unless further material or a sum of money is surrendered.

A blend of sex and extortion.

· jugging (noun)

A theft committed by a perpetrator who waits at a bank, near an ATM, or outside an expensive store, watches for customers who might be carrying a large amount of cash or goods, and then follows them to steal the money or goods from the customer or from their car.

The word jugging is modeled on mugging. The word jug can be a slang term for a bank.

· hostile architecture (noun)

Design elements of public buildings and spaces that are intended to stop unwanted behavior such as loitering or sleeping in public by making such behavior difficult and uncomfortable.

· prison industrial complex (noun)

The network of government agencies and private industry that foster, benefit from, and contribute to mass incarceration, the imprisonment of large numbers of people.

Relatedly, this update also includes the newly added words decarcerate and decarceration, both used in the context of efforts to reduce the number of people in prison.

· crony capitalism (noun)

An economic system in which success in business is obtained through relationships to people in political power rather than through competition.

The word crony means a close friend, but it is often used negatively, especially in the context of business and politics.

· Big Pharma (noun)

Pharmaceutical companies considered collectively, especially with reference to their political and commercial influence.

The construction used to create this phrase, in which the word Big is paired with a specific industry (such as in similar phrases like Big Oil), usually carries a negative connotation.

Science and Tech

· biohacking (noun)

Strategic biological experimentation, especially upon oneself, using technology, drugs, hormones, diet, etc., with the goal of enhancing or augmenting performance, health, mood, or the like.

· algo (noun)

Informal for algorithm.

· bloatware (noun)

Unwanted software that is preinstalled on a newly bought device, especially when it negatively impacts the device’s performance.

· neobank (noun)

A digital bank, typically without a charter, that operates only online or on mobile platforms, providing some traditional banking services, such as checking and savings accounts, at low or no cost to customers.

· pessimize (verb)

To make less good, efficient, fast, functional, etc., especially in the context of computers or information technology.

The opposite of optimize.

That’s it for today. I’ll give you the final list of words that have been added to Dictionary.com next time! Enjoy the rest of your day.

Donna Bradley Burcher |Technical Editor, Advisory | jack henry™

Pronouns she/her/hers

9660 Granite Ridge Drive, San Diego CA 92123

Symitar Documentation Services

About Editor’s Corner

Editor’s Corner keeps your communication skills sharp by providing information on grammar, punctuation, JHA style, and all things English. As editors, we spend our days reading, researching, and revising other people’s writing. We love to spend a few extra minutes to share what we learn with you and keep it fun while we’re doing it.

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Good morning, folks!

As I look outside, it is very foggy, and mamma squirrel is out at my food dish, fattening up for the cooler weather. Even though I’m not in Seattle anymore, I know the leaves are starting to change color and I feel a little homesick.

Autumn (or fall) is my favorite season, so let’s warm up a pumpkin spice latte or some hot apple cider and look at some details about the season.

At Dictonary.com, there is a full article about the seasons, but I’m just going to share a bit.

The word autumn comes from the French autompne, from the Latin autumnus, whose deeper roots are obscure. It’s first recorded in English as early as the late 1300s.

Recorded use of the word fall as the name of the third season of the year comes from as early as the 1500s. The name is thought to originate in the phrase the fall of the leaf, in reference to the time of year when deciduous trees shed their leaves. The name of its inverse season, spring, is thought to come from the phrase spring of the leaf—the time when everything is blossoming.

Americans and the British used both fall and autumn until around the 1600s, when the British went “all autumn” and kicked “fall” to the curb. Americans waited until the 1800s and started using fall more frequently.

There’s one more term for autumn that is even older: the season harvest. It’s from the “Old English word hærfest, of Germanic origin, perhaps with an underlying, ancient sense of “picking, plucking” (as in, picking fruits to harvest them).”

I have some grammatical rules I’ll share with you later (for the capitalization of seasons in our writing), but today we’re just going to stick with the different names for seasons and discuss when the fall, autumn, or harvest occurs. Here are some final details:

In the Northern Hemisphere, fall is roughly between August and November, technically lasting from the autumnal equinox until the winter solstice . In the Southern Hemisphere, where the seasons are flipped, fall is roughly between the end of March and the end of June.

So, as Judy Garland sang in the 1950 movie Summer Stock, “Howdy neighbor! Happy Harvest!”

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Hello, friends.

Dictionary.com recently announced a passel of new words that they have added to the dictionary for 2023. There are quite a few of them, so they broke them up into categories. I’ll share them with you over several weeks, so you don’t get too excited, overwhelmed, or outraged, depending on your outlook.

First a reminder: dictionary editors do not just pick their favorite words to add each year. They add words according to these criteria: the word has relatively widespread use, it has a widely agreed-upon meaning, and it seems to have staying power (that is, it looks like it’ll be around for a long time).

I am not saying I love all these new words, but I do love actively watching language evolve. And like it or not, English is always changing.

So on with the first two categories of words.

Pop Culture and Slang

· jawn (noun)

Informal. Chiefly Philadelphia. Something or someone for which the speaker does not know or does not need a specific name.

Example: Can you hand me that jawn right there?

Philadelphians know that their favorite regional catchall term isn’t new—the first records of its use come from the early 2000s, when it started to be popularized in the Black community. Its addition reflects an increasing awareness of the term outside the region. Its ultimate origin is uncertain, but it may be a local Philadelphia variant of joint, which is used in a similar way in the New York City metropolitan area.

· nepo baby (noun)

A celebrity with a parent who is also famous, especially one whose industry connections are perceived as essential to their success.

· NIL (abbreviation)

Name, image, likeness: aspects of a collegiate athlete’s identity for which they may earn money from a third party, as for advertising sponsorship or merchandise sales, although they are prohibited from being paid directly by colleges and universities for their participation in intercollegiate sports.

· Blursday (noun)

Informal. A day not easily distinguished from other days, or the phenomenon of days running together.

Made-up day names are meant to capture the sameyness vibe of busy lives and work. Similar terms include Whoseday and Whensday.

· shower orange (noun)

An orange that is peeled and eaten under a steamy shower, the purported benefit being that the steam enhances the orange’s citrusy fragrance and creates a soothing experience for the person who is showering.

The phenomenon and the name for it were popularized by a viral social media trend. Keep an eye out for similar practices, including shower beer and shower wine.

· Godwin’s Law (noun)

An adage of internet culture stating that as any discussion or debate grows longer, there is a proportionate increase in the probability that someone will invoke a comparison to Hitler or the Nazi party.

Named after U.S. lawyer and author Mike Godwin (born 1956), who formulated the adage in 1991.

· Poe’s Law (noun)

An adage of internet culture stating that unless some tone indicator is used, it is impossible to tell the difference between an extreme view being sincerely espoused and an extreme view being satirized.

Named after Nathan Poe, who posted about the concept on an internet forum in 2005. But the concept predates Poe’s post.

· campaign (noun)

A story in a role-playing game, spread out over multiple play sessions, that usually keeps the same plot, setting, or main characters.

This is just one example of a word that’s obviously not new but for which our lexicographers have added a more recent sense.

Artificial Intelligence

· generative AI (noun)

Artificial intelligence that is designed to process prompts from users and respond with text, images, audio, or other output that is modeled on a training data set.

· chatbot (noun)

A computer program designed to respond with conversational or informational replies to verbal or written messages from users.

· GPT (abbreviation)

Generative pre-trained transformer or general purpose technology; a type of machine learning algorithm that uses deep learning and a large database of training text in order to generate new text in response to a user’s prompt.

· hallucinate (verb)

(of a machine learning program) To produce false information contrary to the intent of the user and present it as if true and factual.

Be prepared to starting hearing and reading about this with increasing frequency—including in discussions of how AI researchers still don’t fully understand how it happens.

· LLM (abbreviation)

Large language model: a type of machine learning algorithm trained on extremely large data sets of existing language and designed to generate new, naturalistic responses to prompts.

I’ll have more words for you next time. Until then, just be nice. 😊

Donna Bradley Burcher |Technical Editor, Advisory | jack henry™

Pronouns she/her/hers

9660 Granite Ridge Drive, San Diego CA 92123

Symitar Documentation Services

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