freegan

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 7:12 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> At 6:36 PM -0500 11/21/10, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> >Not quite as imaginative as "locavore", but here's "freegan".
[...]
> >Not sure if it's going to stick around and it's certainly not WOTY
> >material yet. The site has been around since 2008.
> >
> >VS-)
> >
> Maybe it's not ready for prime time yet, or maybe it already jumped
> the shark (or the tofark), but it was definitely a contender on our
> list at a meeting several years ago. I can't remember if it actually
> won best in category.  (It certainly didn't win best in show.)  Ben
> or someone else will have the details.  I always liked it because it
> looks like a typo for "Fregean".

It won in the "Most Creative" category in the 2003 WOTY voting.

http://www.americandialect.org/index.php/amerdial/2003_words_of_the_yea/

At the time, Michael Quinion had recently entered it on World Wide Words:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/turnsofphrase/tp-fre2.htm

See also the Wordspy entry, which has cites back to '97:

http://www.wordspy.com/words/freegan.asp

--bgz


--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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