A New Word

I've always wanted to invent a new word. One that describes a concept we're vaguely aware of in such a way that it comes to the front of our brain and people find it a really useful addition to the language.

I've decided we need a word for mistakes so bad they completely discredit the maker. We all make mistakes of course, particularly online. In the heat of an Internet discussion its natural to sometimes misremember a statistic, or quote something from a source you thought was reliable or just get some fact rather wrong. If you do this too often people will rightly start to ignore what you have to say. But its permissible to err now and then.

On the other hand, sometimes people come up with claims that are so wrong you know there is no point reading the rest of what they have to say on the topic, or in extreme cases on anything. I think we need a word for this, and the word I have chosen is "zong". It can be a noun, a very or an adjective.

If you say that Obama is secretly a Muslim, you've made a zong. If you inform the world that the Earth's temperature is determined by heat rising from the center rather than light from the Sun, you've zonged. The claim that violence is as much a female activity as male is a zong statement.

To some extent whether something is a zong or not depends on who is making it. An American who bases some argument on the belief that Canberra has more crime (absolute, not per head) than Sydney has made a mistake. An Australian saying the same thing is zong. The discrepancy in population is so large, and so well known to locals, that anyone who thinks this could possibly be true is not operating in the reality based universe.

The great thing about the zong is you don't have to work out whether someone is lying or merely delusional. You can just note that they've zonged and move on. Of course its a fairly subjective judgment to distinguish zongs from mere mistakes, but sometimes it isn't that hard to tell.

So dear reader, if you think this is a useful concept, I urge you to take the word in hand, and slap down trolls with relish.