• Valleyspeak

    Rock the testosteratio: New words for the Valley

    T-Mobile Sidekicks - ValleywagThanks for screensucking! That's Dr. Edward M. Hallowell's name for "wasting time engaging with any screen." Hallowell's named ineffective multitasking as well: "frazzing" is that thing you do with your Blackberry, non-fat latte, and exercycle in the Google hallway.

    These and other terms for the wired lifestyle in the New York Times inspired Valleywag's own list of neologisms.

    ¬ Gizmautism: The half-aware state of one jacked into an iPod, smartphone, or laptop. A gizmautistic will occasionally miss bus stops, bump into passerby, or have a confusing and embarrassing exchange with a store clerk.

    ¬ Flickr-dating: sharing clusters of photos on Flickr. For instance, Wordpress creator Matt Mullenweg's cluster with ex-Flock designer Chris Messina. Such clusters lead to purely fictional tags such as "mattandchrisaregay."

    ¬ Geezy: Creepy and only possible through the Internet. For instance, meeting a person and immediately making off-handed references to topics from their old blog posts, showing you've immediately read the last two years of their archives.

    ¬ Testosteratio: The adequate proportion of men and women in a Silicon Valley group — take the proportion of men acceptable in the average group, and double it. (Triple it if the women are Asian.)

    You can do better. Send in your neologisms to tips@valleywag.com or put them in a comment. Tomorrow, Valleywag's official neologism contest (with a prize!) goes live.

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