"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Friday, 21 November 2008

Flist

I came across another new word on a blog the other day when someone referred to their flist. It sounded vaguely like a something unpleasant and medical – perhaps a mini fistula - but that didn’t seem to fit the context. A quick check of the definition gave me – “In Scotland, a sudden shower accompanied by a squall”. That didn’t fit the context either.

Then I discovered it was an LiveJournal term. LiveJournal (often abbreviated LJ) is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. I briefly had a Live Journal but it died!

In LiveJournal a flist is - "a user's list of friends". In other words it is an abbreviated form of the term friends list.

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