Attention Webster's

(Non-word-geeks may skip this entry.)

"Jihadization". Did you know that was a word?

Until I find an instance of it that predates January 2007, we can blame Canada for it. (Don't blame Stephen Colbert. I altered the picture. Sounds like him, though, doesn't it?)

But this was the first time I had seen it:

Internet is "the new Afghanistan": NY police commissioner

The Internet is the new battleground against Islamist extremism because it provides ideology that could radicalize Westerners who might then initiate home-grown attacks, New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Wednesday.
[...]
The report identified the four stages to radicalization as pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination, and jihadization, and said the Internet drove and enabled the process.

(Pre-radicalization? Wasn't that that movement of weird-ass Victorian artists who used to meet in their parents' basement? No, wait, that was somebody else.)

I love a well-coined word as much as anyone. Unfortunately, "jihadization" doesn't make the cut.

For that matter, "Islamist" and "extremism" aren't among my favorites, either.

The process of inventing words is called neologism. According to Wikipedia, it is a symptom of schizophrenia or brain damage. Wikipedia, of course, is crammed full of truthiness.

Really, though, the recruitment of terrorist wannabes can be accomplished far more handily on any college campus. On the Internet, you have to build your bombs with one hand.