Newsletter – May 3, 2024
Shakespeare is credited with adding over 1700 words to the English language. I figured I could add at least one [humble bragging sheepishly].
Years ago I was trying to describe the phenomenon of looking at a digital clock while noticing that it was my birthdate. Friends had noticed the same thing and we all agreed that only our birthdate jumped out like that.
It needed a name. I call it hypernataldigitation.
Hyper for the increased awareness. Natal for the birthdate. Digitation for seeing it on a digital clock (you’d never notice it on the hands of an analog clock).
Here’s the really fun part, I submitted it to a website decades ago and I can still find it by doing a Google search! Yahoo is sure that I meant hyper nasality and after scanning through 30 search results I gave up.
I’ve only recently become a published author, but I did create a word a long time ago and it’s still on the internet. Is everything really on the internet forever? Maybe I’m immortal!
Oh, shoot! I never signed my name to the word or the definition I wrote for it. You believe I created it, though, right?
Hypernataldigitation: Awarenesss of a tendency to look at a digital clock when it displays your birthday.
Example: She was acutely aware of her hypernataldigitation. She knew that she often looked at digital clocks when they show 6:17—her birthday is June 17.
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Eric Margerum 