zeitgeist , "upcycling",omnivore, self-inspecting, carnivore, dinosaurs

Dinosaurs are back in the news. Earlier this month, the computer-animated film, Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, was released worldwide. Shortly before that, scientists in Australia announced the discovery of the fossils of three new species of the prehistoric creatures. Two plant-eaters and a carnivore, they are the first large dinosaurs to be unearthed since 1981.
Now we know: she got an early start. Reborn, Journals & Notebooks, 1947-1963 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 318 pages), the first of three projected volumes selected from the diaries Sontag kept nearly all her life, is a portrait of the artist as a young omnivore, an earnest, tirelessly self-inspecting thinker fashioning herself into the phenomenon she will be. A typical entry: "Read the Spender translation of [Rilke's] The Duino Elegies as soon as possible." As soon as possible! She's 15.




Google Zeitgeist 2008
New York Times - United States
By Jack Bell This year’s Google Zeitgeist, where the Internet giant tracks the most popular search terms, revealed that when it comes to soccer in the ...A word for our times

The Oxford American dictionary's word of the year may not be one you've heard of. What's your buzzword of 2007?

November 19, 2007 1:30 PM |

Carnivores, omnivores, herbivores ... and now locavores. "Locavore" has been chosen by the New Oxford American Dictionary as its word of the year for 2007.

In case you're wondering, locavores are people who maintain a small carbon footprint by eating locally-produced food.

Other contenders for the dictionary's 2007 title included "upcycling" - the transformation of waste materials into something more useful or valuable - and the verb "to tase" (stun with a Taser).
stun gun noun [C]
a device which produces a small electric shock in order to stop an animal or human from moving temporarily without harming them permanently


omnivore

n.

1. An omnivorous person or animal.
2. One that takes in everything available, as with the mind.

[From New Latin Omnivora, omnivores, from neuter pl. of Latin omnivorus, omnivorous. See omnivorous.]

carnivore

zeit・geist

［G.］ n. （the ～ またはthe Z-） 時代精神.

You're not alone if you hadn't heard any of these before - we hadn't either. But what would you choose as the word that captures the zeitgeist of 2007?