Since the launch of Ruminations.com in August 2008, the community of ruminators (whom I call the RumiNATION) has created a whole new vernacular to describe activity on the site. Here are some of the more popular slang terms:

Gourmet – term I coined in September 1998 to mean “awesome.” I first used it in my column in Ruminations #52 and readers began to adopt the term shortly thereafter. When I launched Ruminations.com and was looking for a way to describe the voting system, I decided to create “gourmet points,” and the rest is history.

Baconkissed – popularized by ruminator Uecker in this rumination. It is now used as the equivalent to giving a gourmet point to a comment. So if you like someone's comment, hit reply, and write "baconkissed" to give them props. Other variations include “Bkissed” or just “BK.”

Rumidating – when two ruminators meet on the site and subsequently hook up. Yes, it’s happened several times. No, I’ll never tell who.

Newminator – an amalgam of “new” and “ruminator,” it is used to describe the most recent members of the site.

Truminator – coined by ruminator deebs0527. An amalgam of “true” and “ruminator,” it is used to describe veteran members of the site. One of the duties of the truminators is to help newminators get acclimated to workings of the site.

Minus Whale – popularized by ruminator jcn175 in this rumination. Soon adopted by ruminators who jokingly use it in place of “might as well.”

Sarcasm Font – in response to demand from ruminators who needed a way to signify they were being sarcastic in their comments, ruminator webMDoody popularized putting percentage signs around the terms that are meant to be sarcastic. For example, a comment could read: This rumination is hilarious and must make you %very popular with the ladies%. Note: sarcasm font is only to be used in the comments section and not in ruminations themselves.