Ordinosore

Ordinosore is an interesting French word I came across today in an article in The Guardian. It combines ordinateur (computer) and dinosaur and means an out-of-date computer – the laptop I’m writing this on is only three years old, but is already a bit of an ordinosore.

The article mentions le Festival XYZ, an annual event started in 2002 by Éric Donfu to celebrate new words in French and to breath life into the language.

Other words from the festival include:
– phonard – someone who is always on their mobile phone (pejorative)
– bonjoir – a combination of bonjour (good day) and bonsoir (good evening) used at around midday
– attachiant(e) – a combination of attachant (captivating, endearing) and chiant (annoying) that means someone you cannot live with but cannot live without
– bête seller -a particularly awful literary work that becomes an instant hit (bête = stupid, silly).

Are there similar words or festivals in other languages / countries?

6 thoughts on “Ordinosore

  1. lol that makes my 2005 HP laptop (which I’m using now) a ………. ? anything older than dinosaur?
    ah yes …. trilobite lol

  2. As a French, I understood this new word instantly … to the point that I detected a spelling mistake ! It should be ordinosaure (like dinosaure) of course !

  3. Well, here’s another French portmanteau: when Harry Potter was translated into French, the Sorting Hat became the Choixpeau (choix “choices” + chapeau “hat”).

  4. One in Danish that I’ve seen popping up recently is “kærling” which is a combination of “kælling” (bitch) and “kærlig” (loving). It’s used to refer to someone (usually a woman, though I’ve seen it used for a man once) that is really bitchy but whom you can’t help but love all the same. 😀

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