blends of the day (if not WOTYs)

[Laurence Horn]

...at least blends of the day in the Times Style section.  One has
apparently been around for awhile, although it was new to me:

_blook_ 'blog book'

Now there's already an older blook around, which according to the
wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blook was so-called
because 'it looks like a book', but it's the "blog + book" sense of
"blook" which puts it (so says the wiki entry) "on the short list
short-list of new words being considered by a panel of experts for
inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary according to an article
which appeared in the news blog of Guardian Unlimited in October of
2006 and is a runner-up for Word of the Year according to that
article."   It hasn't made it into the OED yet, I see--nothing
between "blooey" and "bloom"; whose "Word of the Year" is that,
anyway, the Guardian Unlimited's?

As for the blook of the year, that's already been settled, it appears
(Times, Section 9, p. 15):

==================
WHEN is a blog not a blog? When it develops a wide enough following
to turn into a bona fide book or, as it's known in the business, a
''blook.'' Early this year a panel of judges awarded the first
Blooker Prize to the breakthrough blook that was deemed worthiest of
all, Julie Powell's account of the year she spent executing the
recipes in Julia Child's ''Mastering the Art of French Cooking.'' Ms.
Powell's book (which grew out of her Julie/Julia Project blog),
''Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen,''
has sold more than 100,000 copies.
===============

I do love that "Blooker Prize".  I guess I live a sheltered life,
since I didn't know any of this stuff--well, I knew about the
Julie/Julia project, and even the b(l)ook that came out of it, I just
didn't know it was a blook.  (Not to mention a virtual clookblook.).

Oh, the other blend, rather less likely to succeed, is "scoffin", a
sort of scone/muffin (Section 9, p. 4).  Pronounced to rhyme with
"loafin'", not with "puffin".  I'd have opted for "scuffin" myself.

Reputed google hits for "blook":  266,000
Reputed google hits for "scoffin":  35,200, mostly irrelevant and
indeed inedible (proper names and such)

LH

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