Words, Some of them Foul

   I like words and I like listening to how other people use words. I’m not quite so geeky that I’ve read the dictionary from cover to cover, but it’s frequently open on my desk at any given time of the day.

   I subscribe to a daily word service cleverly called “Word a Day.” In recent weeks, I’ve incorporated two good words into my vocabulary. 

The first is mathematicaster.  It means a minor or incompetent mathematician and I’ve used it already to describe myself, my friend Mary Bergin and our friend Bob Barrett.

Mathematicaster.  It’s a good word.

   The other word is doolally.  It’s an Indian word that means crazy.  I could also use that to describe myself, my friend Mary Bergin and our friend Bob Barrett.

   But many of the new words in my vocabulary these days haven’t come from the dictionary.  They come from cybermonkeys. 

   Cybermonkeys are the people who are running the cyberworld these days and they’re making me learn new words for this new media in which an old-school journalist is having to make a living.

  I won’t try to impress you with my new found vocabulary, because some of you have probably known them for months longer than me – none of these words have been around probably more than a year.

   And those of you who don’t know the words, well you’re in good company.

   But there’s one thing I need to explain, because I introduced you to it in my last post.

   Pay-per-click.  That’s a website where writers post their material and get paid only when viewers click on the site.  The reader doesn’t get charged, but the advertisers on the site know someone has been there and assume that person has seen their ad and well…it’s worth a penny or two.

   So the pay-per-click site I’m writing for is Suite101.

 I’ve got about a dozen stories posted there now and most of them with Bruce’s pictures.  Click here and make us a few pennies. Click again.  Click again. 

 

Next week’s lesson:  E-books on lulu.  But this one will cost you.