Digital Editor of The Journal in Newcastle Graeme Whitfield embarked on a quest to write a dictionary of 'English-journalese', or misused language that seems to appear in newspapers but not real life in February 2008.

His online blog has attracted visitors from the UK and America who contribute to the ever-growing dictionary.

Whitfield said: "It does seem to have caught on. It got picked up by a few news aggregators like del.icio.us, where users put stuff online that they like, so we got a flurry of responses from America. I think it may be a bit of a guilty pleasure."

The dictionary began with "tot" meaning child ("What a nice tot you have"; "How old is your tot now?" would not be used in real life) or "slam" instead of criticize (Would you tell a friend: "That's a terrible decision. I slam it."), but now includes words such as "pact" for political deals and "snarled" when referring to traffic.

"Despite my efforts to stop people using these words, it hasn't worked," said Whitfield. "You still see 'tot' in the tabloids all the time. But it's nice to start a debate."

Contribute to the dictionary of journalese on Whitfield's blog.

Source: Hold the Front Page