Word Fads
I’m amused by word fads. Words and phrases go in and out of style over time. Clearly this is nothing new.
The word fad that amuses me currently is “uncanny valley“. Uncanny valley is not a new phrase. I probably first heard of it during the rise of CGI in film. Maybe it was around the time of the first Final Fantasy film. The word itself really isn’t that interesting.
What I find interesting is the sudden rise in popularity (amongst the sites I visit). Is this because the typical reader/writer of these sites all read each others’ sites? Likely. From the spread of the usage, we can infer (in vague sorts of ways) the boundaries and the concentrated areas of this social network. Also, one gets a better feel for “movers and shakers”. Mind you, nothing really concrete but just in the “better mental picture” sort of way. But given that everything is now dated and timestamped (blog posts, comments, forum posts), it would be possible map and graph the spread of the usage. I imagine it would be similar to what researchers do in epidemiology (and etymology!).
Of course the bad thing about word fads and what annoys me is that the sudden rise in popularity leads to misuses of the phrase. Uncanny valley does not refer to crappy CGI. It refers to good but imperfect (or maybe too perfect) CGI.
And can we please stop using “post-9/11 world”?