Cynicocratical

There you go, a new word for you. What does it mean? "Pertaining to rule by cynics".

Use the word in context - judging by the commentary about internet filtering in Crikey and other supposedly reputed sources, the governance of the internet is cynicocratical. That is the possible subject for a blog post all on its own!

However this blog post is actually about words - in fact two kinds of words - firstly words that are in danger of extinction and secondly words being created. There are two ripper websites devoted to each topic - each of which can send you a "word of the day" (and both shown to me by the same work colleague).

Save The Words is a cool flash site that provides a picture of a lot of words that are in danger of falling into disuse. Moving the cursor moves the frame across the virtual picture and the words asked to be picked. You learn the meanings of the words, can adopt words and order a t-shirt of the word. The site is operated by the Malaysian subsidiary of OUP (and unfortunately the t-shirts are only available in Malaysia and Singapore).

Meanwhile Urban Dictionary describes itself as the "slang dictionary you wrote". Hence it technically could be called a Wiki-ictionary devoted to slang. While much of it is interpretive of existing slang, it is also a place you can go to make up a word. The word of the day today was "cewebrity" which means "an internet personality that has achieved celebrity". On that basis one of the afore-mentioned - the identity known as "the fake Stephen Conroy" - is a cewebrity.

I've signed up for both. I'll resist the temptation to try to include both words in a blog posting each day!