Part of Speech - noun
Definition - Webidemics is a neologism, or newly-coined word meaning cultural phenomena, including rumors, that start from nowhere and rapidly assume epidemic proportions due to the "viral" nature of the internet to disseminate information without the traditional social brakes.
The term is so new, it is not yet found in any mainstream dictionary! It was recently created by Faith Popcorn, the well-known predictor of social trends and marketing consultant. Her book, The Popcorn Report, was a best-seller, and a second one called Clicking did very well. Popcorn, who changed her name from Plotkin because a colleague had difficulty pronouncing her real name, is in the process of collecting new terms for her upcoming book, Dictionary of the Future.
Before the web, it took a long time for one person to tell 20 people, and for those 20 people to tell another 20. With email address books, that happens in the click on a eye. WEBIDEMICS is a kind of antithesis to academics, and a play on that word, combined with "epidemic", given the shaky, unproven nature of the web-generated information. But Popcorn is neither poking fun at academia nor is she belittling the internet. Rather, she is simply observing the current and developing phenomenon.
One of the most popular and interesting subsets of WEBIDEMICS is urban legends. Already we have had a movie by that name. Here we have the makings of horror - urban legends make excellent horror material as evidenced by this promotional warning: WHAT YOU DON'T BELIEVE CAN KILL YOU URBAN LEGEND. (Ur'ban Lej'end), n.-- a modern-day folktale that appears mysteriously and spreads spontaneously in various forms, containing elements of humor or horror (the horror often "punishes" someone who flouts society's morals or conventions). Urban legends often have a basis in fact, but it's their ever-changing lives after the fact that make them intriguing. Urban legends make WEBADEMICS a fun concept.
Everybody's heard them... yet they have no traceable source. There's no proof they really happened... yet they can't necessarily be proven false. They're urban legends, contemporary tall tales and bits of macabre mythology that emerge from the underground and take on colorful lives of their own. Like a virus they spread quickly, develop a stubborn staying power as they are passed by whisper from person to person, then come to rest firmly wedged in our collective consciousness. They are part of WEBADEMICS.
Did Mikey from the Life cereal commercials really die of a lethal combination of Pop Rocks and Pepsi? Are there really mutant alligators living in the sewers of New York City? And everyone knows about the babysitter who received crank calls threatening the children under her care who then traced the calls to the upstairs bedroom. They range from the silly to the sickening.
In the movie, Urban Legend, a group of students finds out that urban legends can be fatal. Behind the gothic stone facade and pretentious air of history and tradition at New England's Pendleton College-just named the safest university in the country-classic urban legends are being realized with fatal results. But who is doing it? And why? As Pendleton's American Folklore instructor, Professor Wexler (Nightmare on Elm Street's Robert Englund), cautions, urban legends by definition are said to contain hidden moral admonitions for their victims. Unfortunately, some of us have to learn our lessons the hard way.
First, Pendleton student Michelle Mancini loses her head---courtesy of a well sharpened ax. Then the campus' platinum-haired practical joker, Damon, is left dangling on a date - from a tree, that is. Beautiful and assertive student Natalie suspects a bizarre link between the murders. Soon, one by one, students, faculty-even pets-are dying off in a variety of sadistic and wickedly flamboyant ways. Did an old lady really try to dry her wet cat in the microwave? Just how 'severe' is the damage suffered from those tire spikes you're warned not to drive over in parking lots? Are kidneys really extracted from unwilling victims and sold on the black market? Some unlucky souls at Pendleton College are finding out - the chosen few who are bringing legend to life.
Unfortunately, even as increasing numbers of the college community lay dead around them, Natalie's friends are too preoccupied with other things to consider the deaths might be more than coincidence. Paul, an aggressive journalist at the school paper, is only interested in a story based on facts that will hopefully win him the student Pulitzer Prize. Brenda, though concerned for Natalie, is more interested in flirting with Paul. Sasha, the host of a sex advice show on campus radio, is less concerned with the impending danger than with working her way through the Kama Sutra with her fraternity stud boyfriend, Parker. When Natalie sets out to uncover the killer - and get to the bottom of Pendleton's own 30-year-old urban legend about a massacre of students at the hand of an abnormal psych professor - she discovers his demented purpose to fashion the ultimate urban legend, with none other than her lifeless body as its centerpiece.
Apart from the movie, which is quite entertaining, MOE has noted a growing number of websites devoted to collecting these dubious and entertaining stories which define WEBADEMICS. The defining marks of an urban legend include the following:
Appears mysteriously and spreads spontaneously in varying forms.
Contains elements of humor or horror (the horror often "punishes" someone who flouts society's conventions).
Makes good storytelling.
Does not have to be false, although most are. ULs often have a basis in fact, but it's their life after-the-fact (particularly in reference to the second and third points) that gives them particular interest.
As an example of WEBADEMICS, then, urban legends tell tales, perhaps partially true, maybe not. But WEBADEMICS makes no promises of authority or truth. WEBADEMICS is simply the result of a huge forum where information can be created and disseminated with lightening speed. It is the successor to the old folklore which was an oral/aural tradition and which spread over years and even centuries, each version an embellishment of its predecessor.
Like Mark Twain once said, "a lie travels around the earth while the truth is still putting on its shoes."
FOLDEROL
PRONUNCIATION - \FAHL-duh-rahl\
PART OF SPEECH - noun
1 : a useless ornament or accessory : trifle
*2 : nonsense
MOE'S EXAMPLE The Harry Potter series of books for children have not only made a fortune for a divorced, impoverished single mother - English author, J.K. Rowlings, but more importantly, they have rekindled an interest in good old-fashioned reading. Apparently, though, not everyone is happy about this phenomenon. Some fundamentalist religious groups are claiming that the books border on the satanic because of their characters and themes - that is, wizards and wizardry. As 20/20's John Stossel would say, "give me a break!" This charge is pure FOLDEROL. Piffle. Swill. Hooey. Of course, there will always be the ultra-conservative minorities who believe just about everything is blasphemy. Censorship has been around even longer than literaure. Grimm's Fairy Tales featured Hansel and Gretel and witches in the Black Forest. We have had battles among school boards over such literary masterpieces as Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, D.H.Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, and Fielding's Tom Jones. The latest challenge has been dubbed "Muggles for Harry Potter." Who are Muggles for Harry Potter?
Muggles for Harry Potter are people who believe that it is wrong to ban the use of great books -- like those about Harry Potter -- in classrooms and school libraries because some parents object to their content. Some people are offended by the fact that Harry and his friends use witchcraft. Others believe the books are too violent. But restricting the use of books that kids want to read violates their First Amendment rights and helps produce an illiterate society.
The purpose of Muggles for Harry Potter is to support kids, parents and teachers who are fighting school officials and others who want to ban classroom "read alouds" of Potter books and other controversial works, remove the books from library shelves and otherwise restrict their use.
When will these self-righteous groups ever learn that the world cannot be censored any more than the literature which portrays it?
The charge of satanism is the same brand of FOLDEROL that caused the burning of co-called "witches" in the Dark Ages. Remember the story of Joan of Arc? These books are popular because they engage the imagination of children. One enters Harry Potter's world from railway platform 9 and three-quarters and travels into a wonderful magical environment where owls deliver the mail. Many children who are reading Rowling's books are moving away from the passive act of watching television to the active behavior of reading, thinking, learning, and discussing their reading experience with friends. If your kids are reading now and this is new and exciting for them, I am sure you are delighted with the Harry Potter phenomenon! And to those who would censor a child's imagination, FOLDEROL and hooey. Childhood happens but once and is over so quickly. Let us not interfere with the harmless magic of youth. Censors and ultra-right-wing busybodies - lighten up!
Webster's Example:
ETYMOLOGY
Hogwash. Claptrap. Hooey. Drivel. Malarkey. English is rife with words that mean "nonsense," and "folderol" is one of the many. Though not the most common of the words for nonsense, it's been around since 1820 and is still often heard today. "Folderol" comes from "fol-de-rol" (or "fal-de-ral"), which used to be a nonsense refrain in songs -- much like "tra-la-la." The oldest recorded instance of someone "singing folderol" occurs in the 1701 play of the Irish dramatist George Farquhar, Sir Harry Wildair, in which a character sings, "Fal, al, der al!"
BOHEMIAN
Part[s] of Speech - adjective, noun
MOE'S EXAMPLE
Many words in our language move from a specific meaning to a broader, sometimes figurative application. BOHEMIA was a section of Czechosklovakia [that country now divided]. Over time, the term [as noun] applied to any unconventional, anti-mainstream, rebellious person. These individuals often came from the artistic community. America had the lost generation of post-WWI 1920's, the hipsters of the 30's and '40's, , the beatniks of the '50's, the hippies of the '60's, the punks of the '80's, and even today, we have groups who could be described as BOHEMIAN . The stereotypye of the beatnik BOHEMIAN included the goatee, the black beret, the coffee houses where intellectual discxussion took place, a common love of jazz [many BOHEMIANS were musicians], and a funky vocabulary featuring words like "pad", man, gotta go crash in my pad. Many of us are more knowledgeable about this brand of BOHEMIANISM than the American writers who comprised the lost generation.
Gertrude Stein coined the phrase "Lost Generation" to refer to a group of expatriated American writers who resided primarily in Paris in the 1920's and 1930's. The group consisted of many influential American writers including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams, Thornton Wilder, Archibald MacLeish and Hart Crane. These BOHEMIANwriters were disillusioned with the American society and bitter about their World War I experiences. These writers were extremely critical of American society but failed to offer many solutions to the problems they observed.
ETYMOLOGY It comes to us through French, in which language the word (as bohémien) has long been applied to gypsies, who were thought to come from Bohemia, or at least to have entered Europe through that country. This is just the same way our gypsies were so named, because they were thought to have come from Egypt (gypsy being a corrupted form of Egyptian). In the nineteenth century, the word shifted sense in French to mean somebody who was a vagabond, or a person of irregular life and habits, an obvious enough extension of meaning if you accepted the then common disparaging view of gypsies. This sense was introduced into English by Thackeray in Vanity Fair in 1848: "She was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians, by taste and circumstances". The word quickly came to be applied with special reference to an artist, writer or actor who despised conventionality. By 1862, the Westminster Review was able to say that "The term 'Bohemian' has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gipsey, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits ... A Bohemian is simply an artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art". Our modern senses are based on that idea.
PILLORY
Pronunciation - \ PILL-uh-ree\
MOE'S Example
In this era of insidious political correctness, society seems to be "overcorrecting" itself to atone for past sins - usually against minorities. This trend has reached its zenith of absurdity in the awkward and silly changes in language and vocabulary of recent years, for we dare not offend anyone, lest we be PILLORIED in the press or suffer a virtual burning at the stake. Heaven forbid we call a disabled individual anything but "physically challenged" and black persons must be referred to as "African-Americans." There is a litany of proper terminology and our governments have churned out bushels of pamphlets and glossaries, constantly being revised and redistributed at taxpayers' expense, so that we all know the current coinage to address our ethnic, male/female, able/disabled, young/old, hetero/homosexual friends and neighbors! No one can recall the latest pc-correct word du jour because it is changed so often that we don't have time to avoid ruffling feathers. And we certainly don't want to use yesterday's word, which is today out of vogue, logos non grata! We are not talking about the language of hate here. That is a whole different story, a rather nasty neo-nazi one, but we must not ever confuse that business with political correctness. There are no blurred lines beween the two; the difference is crystal clear. The odd thing is that polls and statistics have shown, not surprisingly, that most of the so-called offended persons don't even want these ridiculous terms to be applied to them. If you are black, you are proud to be black and want to be called black. Probably have never been to Africa. Caucasians are white; we'll leave the word "caucasian" for anthropologists to toss around. If you are disabled, you are not "challenged" - you have a disability and that is a fact. As Seinfeld would say, "and there's nothing wrong with that." Old persons are old. Gay persons are homosexual. They know it, we know it and there's no problem. It is our bureaucracy whose decision-makers have pronounced the rights and wrongs and poured this political correctness swill down our throats. For that, let us prepare the PILLORY for them. Granted, we are always going to have bigots such as John Rocker, the Atlanta Braves relief pitcher who let New Yorkers know what he thought of them. So what? New Yorkers are no shrinking violets; they will certainly let you know what they think, whether asked or not. There are plenty of John Rockers among us and always will be. The important thing to remember is that the large majority of us are not bigoted. No need to bring out the PILLORY for every little indiscretion - sticks and stones and all that jazz. We PILLORIED Bill Clinton for his indiscretions. Richard Nixon also got caught with his hand in a different cookie jar. Do you really believe there were no others, that we got 'em all? Remember the great statesman [not "statesperson"] Thomas Jefferson and his black slave-mistress, Sally Hemmings? We all have the proverbial skeletons in the closet. That's because, as humans, we tend to make mistakes - AND THAT'S OK! It is all too easy to take the high moralistic ground, the holier-than-thou stance. Judge lest not ye be judged. Well, MOE says don't get your shorts in a knot. The concept of political correctness is under fire, thank God. Bill Maher's show is a success because he exposes the absurdity of the idea. I say, let us put this dated and ridiculous philosophy out of its self-righteous misery - bring it to the PILLORY, then send it packing for good!
Webster's Example
ETYMOLOGY
Medieval criminals who got caught after the hue and cry was raised might well have found themselves in a stock (which held the feet) or pillory. Both of those forms of punishment
-- and the words that name them -- have been around for about as long as the English language itself. We latched onto "pillory" from the Old French "pilori" (which meant basically the same thing as the modern term), but the exact origins of
the French term are uncertain. For centuries, "pillory" referred only to the wooden frame used to hold a ne'er-do-well, but by the early 1600s, folks had turned the word into a verb for the act of putting someone in a pillory. Within a century, they had further expanded it to cover any
process that led to as much public humiliation as being pilloried.
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When John suggested a visit to the fortune-teller's booth, Susan declared, "I'd rather ride the Ferris wheel again than spend my money on that folderol."
Pronunciation: -mE-&n
Date of first known use: 1603
DEFINITION - 1 a : a native or inhabitant of Bohemia b : the group of Czech dialects used in Bohemia
2 often not capitalized a : VAGABOND, WANDERER; especially : GYPSY b : a person (as a writer or an artist) living an unconventional life usually in a colony with others; person or idea that is offbeat
- bohemian - adjective, often capitalized
Part of Speech - noun
Definition[s] - 1 : a device formerly used for publicly punishing offenders consisting of a wooden frame with holes in which the head and hands can be locked
*2 : a means for exposing one to public scorn or ridicule
As he prepared to address the legislature after the latest scandal, the governor felt like he would be delivering his speech from a pillory, not a podium.
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