Customer Reviews

The Dictionary of the Future: The Words, Terms and Trends That Define the Way We'll Live, Work and Talk

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I suspect some of these reviewers gave themselves five stars for finishing the book. I don't know how one reviews this collection of terms. All I can say is here is a mixed bag of terms, half of which should never have survived the cut. Way too many are already in current usage, (e.g., lucid dreaming, mother-of-all, rage, brownfields), way too many will never become generally used because they are nearly unpronounceable (e.g., participlaytion, bacterroria), others add nothing to existing terminology (e.g., boatominiums or floatominiums for house boats; relationshopping for relation shopping or relationship shopping--Is one very long word better than two short ones?) and there are far too many compounds, words strung together arbitrarily (e.g., socially irresponsible investing, self unfulfilling prophecies, driving Miss Daisy syndrome). Are they patronizing the reader?

I would like to have seen the www.web sites included in the index--there were at least fifty of them relied on and cited. In fact, if the truth were known, the internet was the principal source of half of the thousand terms listed. I would have liked to see the list cut in half, using only the most interesting terms (actual new terms, not those just abbreviated or strung together). Also the authors organized the words into 35 idiosyncratic chapters (e.g., Figures of Speech; Fear, Frustration & Desire; New Behaviors). I would have liked to see half that number of Chapters (e.g., ego surfing was placed in New Behaviors instead of in Internet or Computers. Three sections: Computers, Internet and Technology might have been combined into one).

As to the sections that tried to predict which new terms might catch on--really only a useless guessing game. These sections added very little to the book (e.g., fashion will become fash just as glamour has become glam is no doubt inevitable since both www.....com and www.....com are URL domain names now for sale on the internet). Dropping the last 3 letters to a word merely indicates how lazy some internet users are becoming. There is nothing new in knowing that.

The Dictionary of the Future is an exciting, quick read, filled with witty comentary and winning insight that I think taps into the zeitgeist of the culture. Don't think that this is your average, Webster-type dictionary -- it's really more about coming to terms with, and giving terms to the trends and the movements that will change the complexion of society. The Dictionary of the Future forecasts what culture will be like, and what it has already become; take the chapter on Terrorism, which has already become more than prescient. Opening the book is opening the door to the culture of next 50 years: Highly researched and smartly written, this is the book that your children will pick up down the road and wonder how we knew it back in 2001.

Did Faith Popcorn have a brain transplant? Her earlier books were frothy and insubstantial, lacking substance and simply restating the obvious with a superficial twist. So when I received the Dictionary of the Future as a Christmas gift, I groaned. But what a surprise when I began to leaf through it. Page after page of insight, fascinating peeks into the future, and intellectual fun. I cannnot recommend this book highly enough -- I can't think of anyone who wouldn't find rich value and stimulating thought here. I don't know who this new co-writer is, but she should stick with him in the "future."

So you thought your teenager's lingo was difficult to understand? Wait until you get your hands on this book and the language of the future will knock your socks off! Faith Popcorn is one of the most terrific writers of our time. In my business management classes, I have referred to comments in her famous "Popcorn Report" many times. This book is off the beaten path but thoroughly enjoyable. It is a fictional dictionary of trendy words and expressions most likely to become common terminology in the future. How about going "realtionship shopping"? That signals a desire to settle down. Many are doing that now only without the catchy phrase attached. As for "bankaurants", they will be trendy restaurants by day, bank lobbies by night. As long as there is money in your account, I guess you can be assured of paying for the meal!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish. As for me, it appears this baby boomer is still locked in a time warp and will forever be on the "inklist", those who still prefer to sign their signature with pen in hand as opposed to an "e-signature." Whatever happened to the pen and quill? The author leaves us with the feeling if we do not read the book, we will one day find ourselves trying to carrying on a stimulating conversation with a new-age generation and not having the foggiest idea of what they are saying to us. It rather reminds you of communication with your teenaged son or daughter - I am still trying to adjust to "awesome," "cool-man" and "hangin' loose"!

What a fascinating and original book. I just bought it and read it immediately and thoroughly. Every page is crammed with eye-opening information. I even learned about a new diagnostic treatment that I emailed to my sister who is ill. I feel like I've just been briefed by experts in just about everything. I particularly enjoyed the section at the end of each chapter called "DOF Predicts" where the authors invent their own words, which are fun, smart and provocative. It's the kind of book that makes you wonder why no one wrote it before. I'm glad they did it now. And I plan to send it to everyone on my holiday list.

Gwen Gunderson

I picked up this book, because it seemed intersting, before heading out the airport for my flight home to Australia. What a mistake. I was up for hours reading about the shape of the world to come. What an amazing amount of research, though written in an easy-to-read, lighthearted style -- and some well-placed humour -- yet with deep intelligence and insight on every page. I am always drawn to books about the future, but most of them disappoint -- filled, as they are, with warmed-over nonsense and silly predictions. This one is both rooted in reality and in tomrroow at the same time, a fine balancing act brilliantly puilled off by the authors.

Having been enlightened by Faith Popcorn's past books, I immediately was attracted to a book called Dictionary of the Future. What could possibly be in it?

What I found was a pleasant surprise. Ms. Popcorn and Mr. Hanft (and their talented colleagues) have provided a valuable "speak preview" of existing concepts that seem to be catching on, new learning that is developing in scientific and technical fields, demographic imperatives (aging Baby Boomers and the spoiling of vast numbers of only children), and potential issues that could well emerge from existing trends. While no one would argue that all of these words, concepts, terms, and phrases will become mainstream, this book gives you a way to understand them long before they earn their way into a standard dictionary. Having seen how helpful this dictionary was to me, I hope that the authors will revise and update it from time to time, as occurs with more traditional, backwards-looking dictionaries.

The topics quickly expand into pages of specific listings. Here are some of the major topics: aging; art; biology and biotechnology; children and families; computers; corporate America; crime and terrorism; demographics; education; environment; fashions and style; fear and frustration; new figures of speech; food; government and politics; health and medicine; Internet; marketing and consumer experiences; new behaviors; new jobs; personal finance; religion; technology; and telecommunications. The authors encourage you to read the book from front to back (which I did), but also indicate that you can skip around. I think more people will enjoy the latter. Some of these topics just won't be as interesting to you as others are.

About 20 percent of the listings were things I knew about already. These, however, often contained new information. The other 80 percent were either totally or mostly new to me. I felt like I was moving inside a very interesting science fiction book.

Let me give you some examples from the book that particularly interested me.

Ecstatic Architecture and Museum Getting (the new Guggenheim in Bilbao is cited as an example of both)

Genetic Underclass (for those who have genetic disadvantages that they cannot afford to correct)

Free-Range Children (allowed to lead reasonably unstructured lives)

National Parent Permits (you need one to become a parent)

Affective Computing (helps improve your emotional state by monitoring and stimulating you)

Ego Auditor (to help executives keep their perspective)

Prisoncams (to spot those who can become successful entertainment performers when released)

Cultural Abuse (eliminating an aboriginal culture, for example)

Teacher History (so parents can understand a teacher's track record)

Low-Emission Farming

Pharmaceutical Pollution

Batbelt (to carry all of your electronic devices)

Pastural Poultry (allowed to run wild)

Waki (armpit art)

Posterity Anxiety

Eternity Leave (time off from work to be with someone who is dying)

Cubicle Fever

God-Forbid Room (where you can hole up when kidnappers or terrorists show up)

Restorative Justice (helping to make amends for what you did wrong)

Heart Pollution

Happiness Set Point (your normal level of happiness, like your normal weight level)

Toxic Bouquets (flower shop roses from California often are loaded with poisons)

Subscription Restaurants (where top chefs are imported for one night events with special meals)

Wristicuffs (fighting it out with e-mail)

Infidelity Credits (the right to cheat, negotiated and conducted with full disclosure)

Outdoor Concierge

Chief Seed Officer (executive who runs the venture capital investments for a company)

Entrepreneur Channel

Faith-Based Business

Kitesurfing (windsurfing while flying a kite)

Personal Jammers (to keep cookies from telling marketers where you are and what you are doing)

SHUV (SUV caused accident)

Some of what the book talks about may not thrill you. The book conjures up a world in which it will be hard to avoid advertising (bandwidth, hotel floors, and the bottoms of golf holes will have branded messages on them), but we will really want to do so. Some of the concepts may gross you out for other reasons, such as (...).

Other concepts and terms may stimulate some useful thinking. You might want to live in a Yogurt City when you retire where there is an active set of people pursuing a broad range of interests, rather than a retirement community.

Like all books about the future, this one will be of most value if you use it to create a better future. Good luck!

An extraordinary, futuristic read!

I have already recommended this book to all of my Yale colleagues.

Pick it up, check it out, read it!

The amazing thing about this book, and for that matter any book written by Faith Popcorn, is that she has somehow managed to successfully wring a career out of writing down any ridiculous thought that comes into her head and then compiling those ideas into a book and trying to fabricate legitimacy by asserting with pseudo-certainty that these things WILL happen. I believe her secret is that, along with all of her hare-brained ideas, she always throws in a few ideas that, while still somewhat in their infancy, have nevertheless already presented themselves and been written about. Thus she creates the illusion of correctly "predicting" trends. I have to give her credit though for being shrewd. As I said, she has managed to create her own little niche and built her "trend spotter, future predictor" house of cards on the fact that she has written books about them, so she MUST be an expert. I consider the woman a joke, but then again, she gets the last laugh all the way to the bank.

I really did enjoy this and decided not to sell this book, it's a definite keeper. There is considerable more here than future jargon, substantial details are included of our immediate future workings based on superior foresight of current conditions. Yes, read this book, it will give you added delivery in your chat when the time comes.
If you are truly interested in future workings with this well balanced humor and realism read a phenom, Karl Mark Maddox's SB 1 or God.