Lexicographer Discovers New Word, Immediately Ruined by Internet Using It Wrong

Dr. Vera Phoneme, a historical lexicographer at the Oxford English Dictionary, announced the rediscovery of the rare English word 'pleniloquent' — meaning 'speaking at excessive, often tedious length' — only to watch helplessly as the internet adopted the word within 72 hours and assigned it the opposite meaning. '"Pleniloquent" derives from the Latin "plenus" (full) and "loqui" (to speak),' Dr. Phoneme explained in the original blog post that went viral. 'It describes someone who speaks too much, too long, and with too many words. It's a word about verbal excess. I thought people would enjoy it. I was wrong about what they would enjoy.' The word was picked up by a popular vocabulary Instagram account, which posted it with the definition 'articulate and well-spoken; one who speaks beautifully and with substance.' The post received 340,000 likes. 'That is the opposite of what it means,' Dr. Phoneme said. 'The word specifically describes someone who won't stop talking. It's pejorative. The Latin root "plenus" means full, as in full of words, as in too many words. They've turned an insult into a compliment.' Within a week, 'pleniloquent' appeared in LinkedIn bios ('proud to be pleniloquent'), motivational tweets ('be pleniloquent in your truth'), and a TED Talk title ('The Pleniloquent Leader: Speaking With Purpose and Power'). 'The TED Talk was the worst part,' Dr. Phoneme said. 'It was eighteen minutes long. The speaker used the word eleven times. She was, ironically, being genuinely pleniloquent — in the correct sense — while praising herself for being pleniloquent in the incorrect sense. It was a semantic ouroboros.' Dr. Phoneme has decided not to publicize any further rediscoveries. 'I have several beautiful obsolete words that I am keeping to myself,' she said. 'The internet has lost word privileges.'