For those who like word contests, this is a reminder that the previously mentioned Buzzword contest from BuzzWhack ends Wednesday, November 1, 2006.
That contest is for real words. However, with Barbara Wallraff’s Atlantic Monthly column “Word Fugitives,” you can make requests for made-up but useful words (like Douglas Adams and John Lloyd’s The Meaning of Liff and Rich Hall’s Sniglets from the 1980s). If you subscribe to the online content or have access to the print edition of The Atlantic Monthly, you can see reader requests for such words and submit your suggestions at the Fugitives link above (if it hasn’t run off).
Submitters of outstanding requests and suggestions will receive free books signed by the Atlantic Monthly authors. “Word Fugitives” and its companion “Word Court” usage column (in alternating issues) both have book compilations by Wallraff: Word Fugitives: In Pursuit of Wanted Words and Word Court: Wherein Verbal Virtue is Rewarded, Crimes Against the Language are Punished, and Poetic Justice is Done.