lost consonants

As I waited for the train today, I wandered down to the end of the platform and saw this sign:



I didn't feel very exciting, but my hand itched to reach into my handbag, pull out a black texta and add a letter 'c' to that first word. Luckily I didn't have a texta with me.

Which got me thinking about a great little book I had at home called 'Lost Consonants'. It has pictures of such gems as 'The collected woks of William Shakespeare', or 'administering electric sock treatment'.

And I've come across a site where the creator of these art works, Graham Rawle, answers questions (hilariously) about his work .

And he has a site.

And a blog!

I treasure my copy of his book, but now even more so, as I see that the one I have is out of print.

Googleganger is the word of the year

Every now and then a new word is so perfect that you wonder why it wasn't invented sooner. For years I've been surreptitiously searching the internet for my own name, sometimes to see whether anyone visits my totally boring home page (they don't), and sometimes to see who has the same name as mine.

And now I can come out of the closet with this activity, because once an activity has a name, of course it is legitimate. (Well, mostly.)

I've been looking for my googleganger.

The Macquarie Dictionary has named this as the word of the year. It's a noun meaning 'a person with the same name as oneself, whose online references are mixed with one's own among search results for one's name'. I guess only those of us with an online presence can have a googleganger.

I wonder whether there is already a new verb, to googlegang? I made a quick search and I can't see it yet.