The Rice University Neologisms Database

To spend time writing journal entries or leaving comments (e-props) on Xanga, an online journal community Apparent meaning, etymology, and type of word formation: To xanga is to spend time writing journal entries or leaving comments (e-props) on Xanga, an online journal community. This word initially started as a specific noun for a specific online journal circle, Xanga. According to the official Xanga website (pronounced “ZANG-uh”), the word “Xanga” is “a name that sounded fun, but was still short and sweet. Xanga fit the bill.” The initial creation of this word appears to be a made up word through sound symbolism. The sound “ZANG” suggests a zipping, zigging, zagging idea of speed perhaps related to the speed that your ideas on the online web journal can reach other people across the globe. The name also could possible come from a deformation of the word “zinger,” meaning ‘something causing interest or surprise.’ A journal could potentially cause interest or surprise as a reader learns more about another individual, and thus a potential connection is made. Through generalization the word Xanga, referring to the overreaching webring of journals as a whole came to mean each individual journal. Those with journals would say “I just got a Xanga” or “I updated my Xanga,” referring to their specific journal. By process of analogy the word Xanga was morphed into “Xangans,” meaning those individuals who write online journals on the Xanga website. Then, through zero derivation, the noun Xanga became a verb. Xangans would speak of “xangaing,” meaning spending time writing journal entries, or leaving comments on other Xangans’ journals. This word has not gone so far to extend to any online journal, however. It only refers to writing journal entries on the specific Xanga website. Possible reason used: The writer can more concisely express the way that she spent her time by specifically using the noun and morphing it into a verb. It uses extension from the Xanga site as a whole, to the users’ individual sites, to the process of writing Xanga entries, but each form clearly shows the direct connection of the action or the noun with the Xanga journaling site.