"staycation", "daycation"

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:59 PM -0400 7/29/08, sagehen wrote:
>on 7/29/08 1:55 PM, Laurence Horn at laurence.horn at YALE.EDU wrote:
>
>>  At 9:53 PM -0500 7/8/08, Dennis Baron wrote:
>>>  There's a new post on the Web of Language:
>>>
>>>  ...Anyway, the odometer of English isn't going to turn to one and
>>>  six zeroes next year, because most experts think that Payack has
>>>  seriously overestimated the size of English, partly because he
>>>  includes such oddities as staycation, 'vacationing at home because
>>>  gas is too expensive' and e-vampire, 'an electronic device that
>>>  consumes excessive amounts of energy.'
>>>
>>>  Staycation and e-vampire are amusing products of the moment, and so
>>>  far, that's all they are. People who don't know what they mean
>>>  aren't bothering to look them up, and it's likely that these words
>>>  won't be around very long, because even if energy costs remain high,
>>>  people will still need to get away, and they'll take their
>>>  gas-guzzling iPhones and laptops with them, leaving staycationbehind
>>>  with the baggage "not wanted on the voyage," and driving a stake
>>>  through the heart of e-vampire.
>>
>>  "Staycation" is now taken enough for granted that it forms the
>>  springboard for a new and presumably even more short-lived formation.
>>  A current radio commercial for an amusement park urges listeners to
>>  "forget the STAYcation, and come for a DAY-cation".  Checking on
>>  google, though, I find 14,500 raw hits for "daycation" with the same
>>  sense (a vacation to be accomplished in a single day, presumably with
>>  no sleepover needed).  Google, perhaps thinking of traffic jams and
>>  gas prices, helpfully asks if I meant "damnation".
>>
>>  LH
>>
>~~~~
>How long before we have old camp revivals calling themselves"praycations"
>& a day on the links as  a "playcation"?
>AM
>
Well, there are 36,800 ghits for "gaycation".  These at least all
rhyme, unlike the execrable "mancation".

LH

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