Word of the Week: Dotsam

Dotsam: The wasteland of abandoned Web sites, Hotmail accounts, blogs, wikis, MySpace pages, etc., that their creators have ignored for months or years but which remain accessible. The word was coined in imitation of flotsam and jetsam; "flotsam" refers to goods that float in the water without having been thrown there, as after a shipwrek, while "jetsam" has been cast into the sea--jettisoned--usually to lighten a ship's cargo in an emergency.

Via Buzzwhack.

Comments

[Namer X]

I got two briefs this week from ad agencies that use "surface" as a transitive verb, as in, a new software that "surfaces" documents from your hard drive that are relevant to a project you're working on. They want it to mean "select and highlight", or, "drive to the surface".

They've taken a perfectly fine verb which a swimmer or submarine might perform, and transitived it it. How's THAT for verbing?!

My wife points out that "re-surface" is a perfectly fine transitive verb, but I don't think you can "surface" something the first time, can you?

Hmm. I guess I'm maintaining that one can always re-surface a table, but one can never actually surface it in the first place.

Anybody want to back me up on that one?

Namer X

[Nancy Friedman]

That use of "surface" is new to me, but I used to have a client who would ask me "to language the copy."

[Tate Linden]

Dotsam is too cutesy for me. I understand it, but don't think that as a name it can stand on its own.

As for surfacing... I'd suggest that in the craft industry it might be applicable. Considering that they can both finish and re-finish a piece, it seems the model might fit.

If you can resurface a table then what would you call the original establishing of that surface being replaced? (My woodworking relative tells me that it is called sanding or finishing...)