September 27, 2020: New-Word Robot Updates

Remember the little New York Times robot that notes the first time a word occurs in the paper? Here are four new occurences from September-so-far:  

Schmegular –

We all know exactly what must have preceded this one, but it only gets better.  “Schmegular” appeared in the phrase “regular schmegular Latinos,” a delight in itself.  

Workcations -  

Flexcations -  

Schoolcation –  

(Before you feel compelled to point it out, I do see that the first two are plurals, and probably their singular versions showed up before September. Fine. Just roll with this for now, while we lament the reality that is spawning these monsters.)

Sigh, right? 

Vacations once were lovely, a break from both work (or school) and home.  Well, not “summer vacation,” which didn't necessarily imply leaving town. But in general, a vacation meant both a break in routine and a change of venue.  (Cool etymology:  "vacation" came from the Latin vacare, "to be unoccupied," as in our English "to vacate," or to leave a place empty that used to be occupied. So yeah, when you took a vacation, you left the workplace or school, and maybe the house, empty of your presence.) 

Then we got “staycations," a dumb word that still made a certain poetic sense as a jokey way of saying the break from work or school wouldn’t involve travel. Staycations became a norm during COVID times.

But these new horrors - the workcation, the flexcation, and the schoolcation - feel like they are just rubbing our noses in how very far from normal things are. Also, they are weird constructions. 

I’ve long bewailed the cutesy use of the suffix –gate to indicate that something is scandalous, as if Watergate had been about some particularly liquid-oriented problem. If that were so, it would be a great name for the crime perpetrated on the citizens of Flint, Michigan!

But what is being indicated by –cation in the constructs above?

A vacation meant both not-working (or schooling) and not-staying home. A staycation meant not-working/schooling, but staying home. So then a “workcation” is the opposite of a staycation: you do travel, but you don't stop working. 

It appears that “-cation” is very flexible (much like a flexcation, see above), and appending it to another word basically indicates any change at all in regular schmegular life.