If the framework of one’s story is a freshly-stretched canvas, then words are the colors used to paint the picture.

    Chatty loves this idea of words as colors used to paint a word picture. Possibly because Chatty can’t draw a straight line without a ruler, or a circle without a compass; having no talent for sketching, drawing or painting, she pins her hopes on writing something that others may find interesting or amusing to read.

    So it’s fun to see the new words that are being added to our language every year, and even more fun is the possibility of voting for which words become "official".

    These days, we have online dictionaries, which are more liberal than most published reference works in terms of which words get in and which ones don’t. Browsing The Urban Dictionary, for instance, is a wonderful way to waste spend some time. And now there is an online dictionary originating in Australia that is soliciting our votes for the best new word of 2007. There are many possibilities. Like The Urban Dictionary, some of these new possibilities are not…shall we say…politically correct, so please don’t slam Chatty if you don’t like them – let your vote speak for you!

    Journalist Rob Taylor wrote an article for Reuters January 10^th, 2008 listing several candidates, some of which Chatty quotes here:

    "manscaping" refers to removal of body hair for men…

    "tanorexia" refers to an obsession with a suntan…

    "infomania" describes those who constantly put aside the job at hand to concentrate on incoming email and text messages.

    "Password fatigue" is frustration from having too many passwords to recall.

    And:

    Someone who spreads their clothes around the house, clean or otherwise, is said to be treating the room as a "floordrobe."

    This is fun stuff. So, take a moment and go here before January 31 to vote for your favorite. And why stop at one vote? If Chatty had stopped at one vote when the possibility of choosing the newest color for M&Ms presented itself several years ago, blue might not have won, and we would have had purple or pink instead! I know, I know, it was a tough choice; but blue goes better with red, green, orange, yellow and brown than either purple or pink do…and while we’re on the subject, whatever happened to the tan M&Ms? Did Chatty’s numerous votes for blue bump poor tan? If so, Chatty feels bad now. And she shudders to think what another little voting frenzy of hers may have done to sink certain Crayola colors of yore…