Sunday, January 07, 2007

Inter (a time in between)

The Toronto Star is calling on readers to propose a new word for the current unseasonable season. I propose inter (with the stress on the first syllable). It is appropriately ambiguous in terms of climatic expectations, yet suitably meaningful in its timing: a time between fall and spring. Extending the sense of an existing prefix to include a noun is less of a jump than making up a completely new word (e.g., oobleck). Inter also has the homographic verb, which suggests that winter is dead.

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