"Tumbl" as back-formation

[Laurence Horn]

"At Colby College, where I teach English, I see my students talking to their parents on cellphones — some of them three and four times a day. Occasionally, when things aren’t going well, a parent will Skype me. (“What can Charlie do to improve his grades?” one anxious parent asked me. “Fewer drugs,” I suggested.) Parents and children follow one another’s progress on Facebook. They post photos of the campus lobster bake on Instagram. They tweet. They text. They Tumbl. There are times when I want to tell my students that if they want to learn anything at college, their first step should be defriending their parents." 


"A Freshman All Over Again", Op-ed by Jennifer Finney Boylan (about helicopter parents of college students)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/boylan-a-freshman-all-over-again.html
 

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