New words – 29 July 2013

digital fire hose idiom a very large stream of data

The digital fire hose being wielded by the attackers to jam traffic on the Internet in recent weeks was made possible by the best and worst aspects of the global computer network.

[New York Times (US broadsheet) 28 March 2013]

British molecular biologist Mick Goldman said he had conceived the idea with a colleague, Ewan Birney, while the two sat in a pub pondering the digital fire hose of genetic information their institution is now receiving.

[New York Times (US broadsheet) 29 January 2013]

IP address spoofing noun the use of a fake IP address to carry out a denial-of-service attack

The Network Working Group […] laid out a set of ‘best current practices’ that Internet companies and organizations were encouraged to follow to defeat a threat known as IP address spoofing.

[New York Times (US broadsheet) 28 March 2013]

nano coating noun a coating applied to an electronic device such as a cell phone to make it waterproof

A cellphone case can seal against most water but adds bulk […] Nano coatings render the parts themselves impervious to water damage, so the protection comes without added bulk.

[New York Times (US broadsheet) 21 February 2013]

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2 thoughts on “New words – 29 July 2013

    1. Hi Douglas,

      A word will only get into the dictionary when it is used frequently enough within the language. So you need to first make your word known in a public arena and then hope that it catches on and people start to use it. If this happens, it will be picked up by lexicographers and added to our dictionaries. However, we do not give accreditation to originators for words – once it’s in the language, it belongs to English, not to any one person!

      Of course, the exception to all this is open dictionaries such as urbandictionary.com or wordnik.com, where you can submit entries for any word you like!

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