- When *somebody* complained about receiving 50 e-mails a day, *somebody else*, in a blatant act of e-upmanship, countered that he received at least 100 messages a day.
E-upmanship
noun; blending and clipping
The act of showing up another person by claiming to receive more email messages per day than he/she does This word is a spatial metaphor because the e- prefix is an abbreviation for “electronic.” It is particularly interesting because it’s clipped from ¬e-mail and has been found as a prefix on many words lately. The word e-upmanship seems to be associated with the business community, which relies on e-mail the most heavily. It was coined in order to express the act of outdoing friends, rivals, or competitors also in the business world
Etymology : From e-mail, from electronic mail, from French emmailleure + from one-upmanship
Source : My father
Last modified: 10 June 2008