Merriam-Webster has a collection of their readers’ favorite words that aren’t in the dictionary. Slashdot covered the article in the context of item #3, “woot” or, as I prefer to spell it, “w00t” (with zeros in the middle). Of course, that would be an interjection meaning “an exclamation of joy or excitement”.
Wootiness aside, my favorite is actually #5, “cognitive displaysia”:
- cognitive displaysia
- (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you’re on the highway
I don’t know about you, but that one happens to me all the time and especially as I’m heading off for a long trip. I mean, I’ve done silly things like packing my cell phone on a week-long trip but not its charger (d’oh). Or, just as boggling would be to forget one’s socks on a trip (which I haven’t done but I’ve run into someone who’s done that). These days, I mostly resort to making myself a list of things to pack the night before. That way, I can calmly compose the list and, when it comes time to pack, I just follow the list and I don’t have to worry about forgetting something.
For a little more than a year during grad school, I spent one day/night a week in a town 120 miles away from my apartment for a part-time work thing, and so after traveling once a week for roughly 60-70ish weeks in a row, I got really good at packing the basics. I work on autopilot for toothpaste and socks. Though for some reason, deodorant is a bit more tricky, which accounts for why I’ve got at least four tubes on hand at any given time. (That, or I’m just obsessed with not smelling bad.)
As for the rest — I’m also NOTORIOUS for leaving behind chargers for the variety of electronics (cell phone, PDA, iPod, laptop, etc…) I travel with. For those things, rather than relying upon something as prosaic as a list, I just run through my previous failed attempts at packing in my head, jogging my memory by revisiting past flubs.
I love the M-W list, BTW, particularly ginormous and slickery. :) My brother’s also a huge fan of woot.
Hi Liz! So, do you use the head-jogging technique these days or have you moved to a list?