Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Diegogarcity

You know that phenomenon of seeing a new word in one context, then noticing it all over the place? It's called "diegogarcity":

[fr. Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean atoll; after serendipity]
"a term used [at Wordorigins.org] to denote the appearance
of another term in multiple sources shortly after you have
looked it up in the dictionary" (or first noticed it)

(Simon Winchester's article in Granta on the creation of the vast American military base on Diego Garcia, which started with forced exile of its human inhabitants and the slaughter of dogs and continues today with the projection of naval and air power north toward the Persian Gulf, is worth reading, too.)