I am a word person. I think you know that about me already. I like origins of words, different meanings, and especially the emotions that are tied with particular words. Some interesting information along those lines recently came from Quartz in their article, “Dictionary.com’s newest words reveal our fascination with the internet’s dark side.”
Dictionary.com recently announced the newest words to be added to its annals. Changes and additions to the digital dictionary are made through a multi-layered process that takes into account each new term’s newsworthiness, frequency of use, and related online searches.
The latest additions seem to reveal a growing apprehension of dangers lurking. For example,
- blackhat: a hacker who violates the security of a system for personal profit or for the gratification of causing damage.
- cybercrime: criminal activity or a crime that involves the Internet, a computer system, or computer technology.
- dark web: the portion of the Internet that is intentionally hidden from search engines, uses masked IP addresses, and is accessible only with a special web browser.
- dox: to publish the private personal information of another person without their consent.
Then there are those that identify social characteristics, such as slacktivism: actions taken to bring about political or social change but requiring only minimal commitment, effort, or risk.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
