At Urban Dictionary, B. Kennison has posted a well-made word, clapathy. Its definition: "When an audience grows weary of clapping, either at a ceremony or musical performance."
As I write, clapathy is being voted down by UD's readers. If you like this word, you might want to visit its page and give it a thumbs-up. Browse the comments (and the rest of the site) at your own risk: Urban Dictionary contributors are a pretty salty and saucy group of neologists.
Prophylactic medicine: "Please hold your applause" helps prevent clapathy (I speak as both audience member and occasional emcee).
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Clapathy
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"Clapathy" prompted me to coin a never-uttered pseudo-Latin word, "plauditaedium", which describes a scene in a text from Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars, where Nero is performing in Greece and the audience members become tired of having to clap constantly, but cannot leave the amphitheater because guards are stationed at all the exits. I actually used an excerpt containing this scene in second semester Latin.
Normann, that makes me want to invent "platitudium," a room in which captive audiences listen to exhortations about living one's dreams and shooting for the moon.
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