"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Sunday 24 February 2013

Moofer

Moofer is an acronym.  It stands for 'Mobile out-of-office worker' and refers to people who are employed but work from home rather than going into an office day by day.  The word was coined recently by James McCarthy, a Microsoft worker, in his blog entitled 'Mr Moof'.

2 comments:

  1. Not that long ago I've read this (and the explanation) in a magazine.
    But a lot longer ago I was familiar with a similar word with a very different meaning: In the early days of internet chatrooms (we're talking the 1990s here) we used to refer to being suddenly "kicked out" of a chatroom for technical reasons (not for bad behaviour!) as to having been "moofed" = modem offline. Strictly speaking, it shoud have been "mooffed" with two f, but nobody ever spelled it like that. Ah, those were the days!

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  2. Moofed sounds so much nicer than kicked out or removed for technical infringement. I don't think I would have minded being moofed!
    And thanks for the additional meaning - it's always helpful to know when expressions have other meanings.

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