Neuroscience and "Yaka-Wow!"

 from World Wide Words:

 
> WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 688 Saturday 1 May 2010

> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> YAKA-WOW! In what seems to have been a mixture of rueful admission
> of error and pleasure in accidental accomplishment, the Times noted
> on 23 April that a transcription error in an interview on 15 April
> with the neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield has gone viral. She was
> concerned that excessive playing of computer games or using social
> networks such as Twitter would stop the malleable brains of young
> people developing as they should: "It's not going to destroy the
> planet but is it going to be a planet worth living in if you have a
> load of breezy people who go around saying yaka-wow. Is that the
> society we want?" Within 24 hours, it is said, Google had 75,000
> results for "yaka-wow". It has inspired a Twitter stream, a page on
> Facebook, mugs and T-shirts; it has become a personal philosophy:
> "I think, therefore I yaka-wow"; and it has led to the creation of
> the virtual First Church of the Yaka-Wow. What Baroness Greenfield
> really said was "yuck and wow", a derogatory comment about the
> limited emotional range and vocabulary of Twitter users. Considered
> linguistically and culturally, it's a fascinating example of the
> way electronic communications can today create and transmit a new
> word.
 

-----------------------------------------------------

---

The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail. Get busy.