That Should Be a Word

Finally there's a word for it: Fidgital--excessively checking one's devices. Martyrmony--staying married out of duty. Author of the highly popular "That Should Be a Word" feature in the New York Times Magazine, Lizzie Skurnick delights word lovers with razor-sharp social commentary delivered via clever neologisms. That Should Be a Word is a compendium of 244 of Skurnick's wittiest wordplays--more than half of them new--arranged in ingenious diagrams detailing their interrelationships.

Complete with definitions, pronunciations, usage examples, and illustrations, That Should Be a Word features words on our obsession with food: carbiter--one who asserts that someone else cannot be hungry. On social media, like twiticule--to mock someone in 140 characters. On the modern family, like brattle--to discuss one's children at great length, which leads to words like spamily--Facebook or Twitter updates about kids--and spawntourage--a group of approaching strollers.

From highlighting the profound financial anxiety of a post-recession society (bangst) to mocking the hyper-vain celebrity circle that abstains from anything of import (celebracy), That Should Be a Word delves deep into all the most humorous, and maddening, aspects of life in the 21st century.