Words fail me

When I first got a GMail account, I signed up to a lot of newsletters. I forget why, I think there may have been a myth at the time that they'd close your account if it didn't get a certain amount of traffic. But that's not important.

What is important is that one of the mailing lists I signed up for was the Dictionary.com Word Of The Day. I rarely read the actual e-mails, but I've noticed a marked change from four years ago to today - I think they've run out of words.

I mean, I used to recognize the word of the day every once in a while, but those words were few and far between. Take a look at this sampling of recent words:

• genuflect (Oct. 27)
• corroborate (Oct. 26)
• malfeasance (Oct. 20)
• waylay (Oct. 15)
• aficionado (Oct. 9)
• verbiage (Sept. 29)
• panache (Sept. 28)
• melee (Sept. 26)
• proponent (Sept. 20)
• vociferous (Sept. 17)

Get the picture? You might not recognize every single word in that list, but I'll bet you know a good deal of them, and maybe a couple of the ones I didn't.

And just think of how many people are in the same situation I am - receiving e-mails they don't particularly want and will never read, but will also never unsubscribe from! No wonder the tubes are clogging!

--Ryan