A Way with Words A Way with Words

spamigation

Posted by Grant Barrett on · 3 Comments

spamigation
 n.— «Spamigation: The abuse of bulk legal action. Filing lawsuits in bulk (as in the RIAA filesharing lawsuits or DirecTV smartcard lawsuits) without taking care to assure all defendants are actually at fault. As such, some defendants are bound to be entirely innocent, but this doesn’t matter because you don’t really plan to take any to trial.» —“New word: Spamigation” by Brad Templeton Brad Ideas Apr. 22, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

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  1. Matthew says:
    August 29, 2006 at 11:45 am

    a good place to read more about the RIAA spamigation here:
    http://info.riaalawsuits.us/documents.htm

  2. David Paul Bankson says:
    August 30, 2006 at 11:07 am

    Before I clicked on the term to see how it was used, I assumed that the two terms being melded were “spam” and “fumigation”, thus spamigation would be a method of “killing off” spam, so to speak. Hurray!

    Alack, the second term is “litigation”. That’s the problem with “meld terms”, they can lead a person in the wrong direction. Oh well, it still manages to embrace an interesting concept, and anything that sets a fire to the RIAA is something I’m all for. Hurray!

  3. Grant Barrett says:
    August 31, 2006 at 11:40 am

    Thanks for the comment. A “meld term,” as you put it, is usually called a “blend” by lexicologists and lexicographers.

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