Thursday, November 22, 2012

GIF is American Word of the Year 2012



Language is getting creepy. "To podium" and "to medal" are just going too far in mangled misconstruals of nouns into verbs of intentionality.

Social media acronymic nonsense like YOLO (you only live once), FOMO (fear of missing out), TLTL:DR (too long to load, didn't read) are nuts.

GIF (graphics interchange format) has been proclaimed the "American Word of the Year 2012" by the Oxford University Press, with "omnishambles" (cluster mess) as the UK winner.

According to Wikipedia:

GIFs are suitable for sharp-edged line art (such as logos) with a limited number of colors. This takes advantage of the format's lossless compression, which favors flat areas of uniform color with well defined edges.

GIFs can be used to store low-color sprite data for games.

GIFs can be used for small animations and low-resolution film clips.

In view of the general limitation on the GIF image palette to 256 colors, it is not usually used as a format for digital photography

Digital photographers use image file formats capable of reproducing a greater range of colors, such as TIFF, RAW or JPEG.


More new words and wordings 
to watch out for:

chipmunking = playing university lectures at 2x speed

selfie = photo taken by aiming camera at yourself because you have no friends

generation XL = obese kids

bacon wrap = boost something already good into new levels of excellence

grown-ups = supervisors at work (who tend to be older)

struggle bus = difficult situation

debate smile = fake facial expression in reaction to tough accusation

ambush TV = showing an unpleasant image without warning

photobomb = photo ruined by unexpected intrusion or facial expression

subway salmon = person going wrong way, against the crowd flow

WFIO = we're f'd, it's over

3ullet = "bullet", someone with extreme skills who owns a game or debate

venthole = someone who threadjacks a serious social conversation with personal trivia

leftover crack = something that doesn't exist

bees!!! = something bad or big unexpectedly occurs that you cannot express in words

ironic mustache = mustache grown as a joke that lingers way too long

hobo beard = unkempt unstyled beard that results from just not shaving

wag1 = what's up?

tummy blender = eating things that don't mix well in your stomach, like hot wings and chocolate

fridgety = opening refrigerator door due to boredom, not hunger

ThND = Thursday night drinking because you are unemployed and don't have to go to work on Friday

And the worst of all...

nomming = eating food loudly and enjoyably, with "nom nom" sounds

No comments: