Nixta Rolls

Tumblr has brought to my attention what appears to be a gap in the English language; Tumbleposts are often hurried, and typically the only tidiness inherent in them is thanks to the simplicity and regiment of the Tumblr framework.

I have on a couple of occasions already referred to my “scribbles” here, somewhat concerned that a scribble involves a physical interaction between marker and marked. Pen on paper. Crayon on cardboard. Magic marker on face. And that led me to ponder whether there was a more suitable term. One already in common use. One that I would feel comfortable using.

I wondered about the term Scrobble, which I’ve heard before only once. I heard it at Last.fm. Scrobbling apparently means sending information about the song you’re listening to over to the last.fm website for them to shove it into their database. Funny. I thought that was datamining. But no-one would let them do that if they called it that, I guess.

Or, if you believe the urban dictionary (it seems to be a desperate plea for comedic acceptance at times), it seems to have a load of potential definitions to do with the scrotum and, in one particularly unpleasant mutation, razorblades.

I doubt that Latin would provide a root along the lines of scribere (as it did for scribble) that would be a suitable driver for a modern-day word to describe the typing equivalent of scribbling. Certainly my limited and 99% forgotten Latin doesn’t.

I also feel lazy and hungry right now, so I can’t be arsed to put more than 5 minutes’ thought into this and so have derived tibble from scribble. Typing + Scribbling = Tibbling.

It sounds twee though. I wish for a better option. Perhaps it will come to me in my sleep, or in the shower, when all my good ideas seem to formulate. Or perhaps it will come to me in my comments. It can’t be tribble though - that’s a Star Trek Mogwai.

Any advance on tibble, anyone? Going once… going twice…