“Webinar” makes it into the dictionary

This past week we held our first ever Glance-hosted webinar on how to host a great web demo. We were delighted to have 300 people register, and to have the event go smoothly (almost) all the way to the end.

Coincidentally, the word “webinar” was just recently announced as a new official entry into the Merriam-Webster dictionary, along with 100 other new words, including edamame, wing nuts, subprime, and my personal favorite—mondegreen.  Mondegreen refers to “a word or phrase which results from a mishearing of something heard or sung.” Remember the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the sky with diamonds,” which the Peanuts cartoon generation interpreted as “Lucy in the sky with Linus?”  And how about the Creedance Clearwater Revival song, “There’s a bathroom on the right,” instead of “There’s a bad moon on the rise”?  My childhood mondegreen was trying to figure out who that “Richard Stands” was in the Pledge of Allegiance.  Remember that phrase about the “republic, for which it stands…?”  My kids used to sing “It’s a Smaller Dum de Dum,” instead of It’s a Small World After All,” after a trip through the famed ride in DisneyWorld. And I’ll bet you can think of a few mondegreens from your past as well.

To me it’s fascinating that the word mondegreen has been around since 1954, but only just now made it into the dictionary, while the word webinar has been around since only 1998, earning its place in the dictionary 44 years sooner.  A testament to the lightning speed of the internet in our generation, perhaps?

So, we hope you’ll join us for our next “webinar” which we are planning for late August—and be pondering your favorite “mondegreen.”  If you have a really great one, the Merriam-Webster website is accepting entries and will be announcing their favorites in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, we hope you’re enjoying the pace of summer.  Happy
Glancing! 

Comments

[Rob Lubow]

What an enjoyable digression. The word itself is derived from a mondegreen. According to wikipedia, the woman who coined the term had mistaken a line in a poem "and laid him on the green," for "Lady Mondegreen," and that's how the term was born. :)

[Jonathan]

Would like to see this webinar. Is it archived somewhere? If so please send it to my email. Thanks

[Jonathan]

Would like to see this webinar. Is it archived somewhere? If so please send it to my email. Thanks