whuggle

[Amy West]

On 5/15/12 12:00 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> If this family =
> of items has really been around since the 1990s, as it appears, it =
> should be probably be recorded somewhere.  (Was there a relevant ATNW in =
> which these terms were recorded?)  Or does it only belong in a virtual =
> lexicon, rather than an actual one?
I think I see what you mean: a quickie Google search turns up a bunch of
glosses of it like but no primary instances of its use, except in the
last item here.

http://llt.msu.edu/vol8num3/lam/default.html
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/whuggle
http://www.ghostweather.com/papers/GenderMOO.htm

Here's the thing: it's used in the chat box so it's pretty ephemeral.
We're not going to see it uses it in, oh, a game review or a fan story
or a discussion on a blog or a board.

Here's one:
http://www.madman.com.au/madboards/viewtopic.php?p=307332&sid=a2653a8872ab0820c1f17011af0f0eb8

8 instances of whuggle there.

I think I'll ask my teen (hey, Neal, how about you ask yours as well) if
he hears his peers using this term in spoken conversation. I know that
they've moved things like "pwned" into their active spoken vocab. They
may not have done the same with "whuggle" if it doesn't fill a need.
(What need "pwned" fills for them other than bugging me, I'm not quite
sure: an ironic, slightly mocking assertion of superiority?)

(Because I'm a day late and a dollar short due to reading on the digest,
I apologize if I have repeated what others have already said. And I also
apologize if I have stated the obvious or the already known.)

---Amy West

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org