Glossolalia

A great word—unknown to me before reading Cory Doctorow’s rebuttal to a MS blogger about Norway using MS video for its national video archive (which I also view with mistrust—governmental systems should always be open sourced, imho, despite my particular affection for certain more proprietary systems).

The OED (Thanks SPL!) has a short entry, listing use as surprisingly modern—1879 being the first recorded entry.

The word itself is onomatopoeia, glissading off the tongue and ending in lyrical lalaing. I think I’ll try to use it in a sentence today.

“We weren’t very surprised when George W. Bush’s speech descended into glossolalia.”

Define Glossolalia via Google

Posted by: Martin McClellan
On the date of: October 17, 2005 07:42 AM
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