Columnist Susan Snyder: Just take our words for it

Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2002 | 8:18 a.m.

No, not a tuber fit for a rodent. Rather, it's a slug who spends too much time at a computer.

The term is among the year's newest words, according to the Random House Webster's College Dictionary. (Webster's name is passed around dictionary titles like a bad Internet joke. There's even a volume of Webster terms featuring Garfield, the cartoon cat that ceased being funny before the last Webster's edition was printed.)

Random House says its Webster's has "a reputation for capturing new words faster than any other dictionary."

"Arm candy," meaning an attractive person, is a new term. So is "rage" meaning a fit of violent anger as in "air rage" and "mall rage."

Mall rage?

If you link into the Merriam-Webster website, you can make up your own words. "Gwiggle," meaning to giggle and wiggle at the same time, is up for consideration, in addition to "natisfying," which is something disgusting.

There's a long, complicated explanation of how simple usage adds new words to the dictionary. Nowhere does it mention poor usage on the part of newspaper columnists among the criteria.

Merriam-Webster's word of the day for Monday was "melange," meaning a mixture of often incongruous elements, such as a melting pot.

Hence, today's column.

Scribes who can rescue words from such depths as a newspaper columnist's drivel can read their original poetic prose Jan. 18 at the city of Las Vegas' Poet's Corner.

The free, open-mike event is at 7 p.m. in the West Las Vegas Arts Center, 947 West Lake Mead Blvd. Call 229-4800 for more information.

Jan. 18 also is the deadline for youngsters with talent to enter the Reed Whipple Center's Search for Talent, a contest for the 6-18 set who sing, dance, play a musical instrument or perform a novelty act.

Auditions will be scheduled after submission of entry forms and a $10 per-person registration fee. Age division contests are in March. Those winners compete April 13. Call 229-6211 for information.

Now back to drivel. Why do we need a new state flag? A 65-year-old retired defense contractor from Minden has created a new blue-and-white flag design with a star and snow-capped mountain peak.

Aside from the fact that it in no way represents the end of the state that financially supports most of the state, it's butt ugly.

Evidently the North American Vexillogical Association -- talk about needing a dictionary -- likened Nevada's current flag to "a blob on a bedsheet."

However, the new design that Secretary of State Dean Heller wants legislators to consider looks like a backdrop for the really sophomoric but really funny television show "South Park."

Heller told the Associated Press last week he figured Carson City-area residents would oppose the change because they are more in tune. But not so in Clark County, "where people come and go a lot they probably would not have such an opposition to it."

Seems his perception of the Las Vegas Valley is as poor as his taste in artwork.