[Ads-l] on the WOTY watch--"unicorn" and "unicorn poaching"

[Ben Zimmer]

Didn't have room to talk about that one in my WSJ column, but Paul
McFedries covered it on Wordspy around the same time:

http://wordspy.com/index.php?word=decacorn

On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 3:59 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>
> A single horn is now hopelessly passe. The Silicon Valley press
> demands ten-horned beasts: decacorns.
>
> Website: TechCrunch
> Title: There Is No Silicon Valley Crash Coming -- For A While
> Author: John Rampton
> Date: August 23, 2015
>
> http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/23/there-is-no-silicon-valley-crash-coming-at-least-for-a-while/
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> Additionally, the media points to the emergence of unicorns -- those
> companies valued at more than $1 billion, like Slack -- and now the
> "decacorns," which are those valued at more than $10 billion, like
> Uber (which has been given the illustrious valuation of $50 billion).
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 12:34 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 12:12 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>>
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/technology/unicorns-hunt-for-talent-among-silicon-valleys-giants.html
>>>
>>> Ben will probably tell us that they've been around for a while, but I do
>>> like trying to guess at what someone (like me) who encountered "unicorn
>>> poaching" out of the blue would come up with for a meaning (perhaps
>>> the preferred way to prepare unicorns if you're a health-savvy consumer,
>>> perhaps with a garlic sriracha dipping sauce).
>>
>> I covered tech "unicorns" back in March for my WSJ column:
>>
>> http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-unicorns-became-silicon-valley-companies-1426861606
>>
>> (Now paywalled, but you can get around that by Googling for the
>> headline, "How Unicorns Became Silicon Valley Companies.")
>>
>> More from me in this Fox Business interview:
>>
>> http://finance.yahoo.com/video/why-silicon-valley-calling-billion-181328298.html

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