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WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 12:48 am
by Dr. Goodword

• webinar •

Pronunciation: web-i-nahr • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A conference or interactive seminar conducted via the Web.

Notes: Today's Good Word is a recent addition to the English language. It is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, the Collins English Dictionary, the Macmillan Dictionary—and it even has a place in Wikipedia. This word is so new, it has no relatives, but webinarist is already appearing on the Web.

In Play: You probably receive the occasional e-mail invitation to participate in webinars: "Did you receive the announcement of the webinar on how to make money with webinars?" The webinar is used mostly in the business world: "My company is having a webinar of all its employees tomorrow on how to prevent leaks of confidential information."

Word History: Today's Good Word is a blend of web + seminar. Web comes to us from Old English webb "woven fabric", related to wefan "to weave". Weevil and waffle, the pancake with a weave pattern on either side, are also related words. Finally, we have the verb wave, as to wave goodbye, a related word. Seminar comes from the same source as seminary: Latin seminarium "nursery, plant bed", the place where young plants are nourished before they can be set out on their own. This word is based on Latin semen, seminis "seed", itself a noun derived from the verb serere "sow". English sow shares a common origin with serere. (The seed for today's Good Word was sown by Daniel Obertance. I can only hope that you, kind reader, think it has flourished.)

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:21 am
by MTC
"(W)ebinarist is already appearing on the Web." Indeed, here I am, a webenarist in your midst. Before I retired from practicing law I was invited to give a webinar followed by a lecture on the subject of Veterans' Law and benefits. Quite an experience, which went well enough they tell me. But with only a cyber audience to speak to, it's hard to guage how your words are being received. Are the attendees throwing cyber-tomatoes, clapping, what? You only learn later how you fared.

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 1:50 pm
by LukeJavan8
So, how did you fare? Or has not enough time lapsed?

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 3:10 pm
by Perry Lassiter
Have your professional linguists noted that we are in the midst of a birthing period for new words related to the internet and computing in general. I'm not trained in that field, but if I were, I would want to collect a long list of words invented in the last 30-40 years and track their development. It would be comparable to anthropologists studying primitive tribes to discover the sources of human behavior. Where and how are the words created. From devlopers at MS, Google, and Apple? Mostly from geeks or what catches on with users? I recently noted on Res Diversae synonyms for flash drive. We are probably close to a thousand or more. And since Doc did his take on dongle, i hear and use it more often.

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 6:22 pm
by MTC
So, how did you fare? Or has not enough time lapsed?
I fared well. Not sure about the students! The hosts of the webinar told me it went well, but again without a live audience it's hard to judge. The live lecture which followed a week or two later was a hit, mostly because Veterans' law is a niche area which no one outside the field knows anything about.

Here's a link to a glossary of computer and Internet-related terms: (http://pc.net/glossary/)

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 8:56 pm
by Philip Hudson
Remember, Perry, that all those names for the little memory stick that have the word "drive" in them are factually in error. There are no moving parts to drive. It is solid state. Only the electrons move, and they are always moving everywhere else in the universe. The electrons in the memory stick are being channeled by an electric current through functional elements on integrated circuits. In my day, the challenge was to keep the memory stable when the power was removed. That problem was solved. I envision the elimination of all memories that depend on any kind of mechanical drive: no hard-drives, no CDs, no DVDs, just fast stick memories with many gigabytes of storage. I spent years on the bubble memory. We hoped it would solve the problem. Unfortunately, it never got off the ground.

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:08 pm
by Philip Hudson
Yes, someone should chronicle these new words in the electronics world. I predict that the portmanteau word "webinar" will have a short life. Geeks do not like seminars, preferring to work alone in their own little worlds. The general public will tire of the word after the novelty has worn off. I don't think a web conference has been called a weberence yet. And people are likely to discuss remote conferences with other words. The patented word Skype comes to mind. Skypinar?

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:15 pm
by damoge
anyone know if "sere" is in any way related to "serere"? I can't see any connection, but ...

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:34 pm
by Philip Hudson
Sere is an English adjective meaning unable to support agriculture. It is related to the word sear. Serere is a proper noun that names a place in Uganda, Africa. Serere is a verb form of the Latin verb serō which means to plant (seeds). Note, I am not a Latin scholar, I looked it up. There does not seem to be any connection, unless perhaps the place in Uganda was named for its sere environment. That doesn't seem likely.

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 10:40 pm
by damoge
would seem highly unlikely that any place in Uganda would have a name from Latin, despite the fact that it might be a sere location, or a verdant one...

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 10:41 pm
by damoge
thanks for looking it up for me. I need to find more resources that would allow me to do this myself, but have no time to develop a list...

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 11:05 pm
by Philip Hudson
With web browsers like Google, research is no sweat. Just enter the word "serere" and you have a number of references to search. It odesn't always work but it did with serere whi did not know. I already know sere.

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 9:08 am
by MTC
"Sere" is a favorite of poets, e.g.:

I have lived long enough. My way of life
Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf,
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have, but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath
Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 3

Not content with poetry, "sere" has traveled far afield to Ecology where it means "a natural succession of plant (or animal) communities, esp. a full series from uncolonized habitat to the appropriate climax vegetation."

I found this unexpected meaning of "sere" while looking for poetic usage, through serendipity.

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 1:21 pm
by Philip Hudson
Serendipity may be the best way to come upon knowledge. Thank you, MTC, for this expansion of the meaning of sere. I think it may be a less useful word for its expansion since it includes a variety or series of environments. But we cannot control the way of words. It is good to try to keep up with them.

You aren't suggesting that the etymology of sere is similar to that of series are you?

Re: WEBINAR

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 3:42 pm
by gailr
Well, he did italicize the first syllable of serendipity... :wink: