LibeMeMe; NaNoBloMo...???

Language as club membership (or exclusion). I know what these "words" mean, but I had to ask someone. And yes, I felt stupid having to ask because that meant I wasn't part of the Blog Club that was writing a novel during November. Or something like that.

And you're definitely not "in" if you don't know what a blog is.

Aside from computer literacy and acronyms like LOL, ROTFLMAO and a host of other sillies that seem to have prevented people from expressing themselves clearly, language can be used to identify membership in an elite group.

Part of it's function is to be specific - a mechanic can't ask another mechanic for a Whatsit or a Thingamajimmy, even though I can when I'm looking for cables to boost the car. That type of specificity is a GOOD thing between similarly trained people. But not so much when it's used to confuse the car owner into paying twice as much for repairs.

One that comes to mind from my days in library school....someone asked about a cataloguing point of entry when they meant the letter "M".

And how's this one? An article on the "Solipsistic Nature of the Generalized Baby Toy"....

An art critic writing about a cute little rattle.