fomentum

(n.) -- A state of existence reached when a gaggle of political candidates gather for a debate and ignore the issues, respond to questions without substance, preferring to bluster, posture and end the debate having done nothing other than denigrate each of the other politicians on stage.

"Did you see it? The South Carolina Republican debate last night produced new fomentum as the candidates berated each other and offered not a single substantive idea."

-- overheard at a watercooler in Raleigh, South Carolina, January 20, 2012

screengrab

(n.) -- An image taken from a computer screen or homepage and duplicating it on a newspaper or magazine page (grabbing the image from the screen)

"That YouTube video image in the newspaper today was a screengrab, that's how the editors got it, off the computer screen."

-- overheard in a newsroom at a newspaper in New York, July 3, 1999

crash possums

(n.) -- words that are spelled incorrrectly, for all the world to see, on TV broadcasts at CNN and other networks

"I've seen some real bloopers and howlers on CNN recently, where the headline writer spelled "competing" as "competiting" and things like that. Happens almost every day on my TV screen, all the networks do it. Don't they have copyeditors? I call them 'crash possums' because they remind me of dead possums on rural roads and highways."

-- Overheard outside a coffee shop in Harvard Square in Cambridge on January 8, 2010