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You're listening to Away With Words. I'm Grant Barrett.

And I'm Martha Barnett. One of the questions we get a lot here is whether this or that newly coined word has staying power.

And recently, Grant, you were writing in Forbes magazine about a number of words and their chances for survival.

I did. The editors there contacted me in a bunch of other language people, including

Ben Zimmer and John McWhorter, and said, look, we're doing a package on neologisms. We'd like you to write something. So I said, well, let me just do a little grading here. And I'll put up a list of words and tell people how I think they're going to do in the future. Okay. And a lot of these words were new to me. Like, for example,

AFPAC. Tell us about that one.

AFPAC is a mix of this two

countries. going to do in the future. Okay. And a lot of these words were new to me, like, for example, AFPAC. Tell us about that one.

AFPAC is a mix of this two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, because their political issues

are so intertwined. They're often treated together as a single element. This term became common

last year, but it's really exploded since the Obama administration has taken over

and begun to focus its attention on Afghanistan. So you think this one is around to stay?

I do, yeah. AfP-A-K. Sometimes it's all capitals. Sometimes it's lowercase. Sometimes it's hyphenated.

Yeah, I haven't run into that. I'll have to watch for it. What about frugalista?

Frugalista is how I say it, but maybe that's it. Fugolista is a woman who is so committed to staying fashionable and stylish that even though she might be out of work or that money might be short, she's going to desperate ends to browse the discount bins or to go to the used clothing store to stay cool, you know, just to look great.

She's not going to pull out her ratty jeans or anything like that.

Well, this one sounds sort of like a flash in the pan to me.

What do you think?

Frugalista?

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