Best word I’ve learned this year? “Locknote” has my vote

I’m giving the last speech at next week's World Conference of the Professional Speechwriters Association, at Georgetown University.

The speech asks why, with so many infinitely more efficient communication media, we still give speeches and people still listen to them. For speechwriters, that's an existential question, and I figure the head of the big speechwriting association ought to dress up nice and attempt an answer. And it seemed like a good way end the conference.

Now, of course, I'm terrified that everyone including me will be so tired of my voice by that late stage of the conference that I'll wind up mumbling like Dylan Thomas in his cups at the White Horse Tavern, "Somebody's boring me. I think it's me."

But I think I found a way to spice the speech up! I'm going to call it the "locknote" address, a term I just discovered this week, in the very nick of time. Definition: “the last presentation in an academic or business conference with a broad thematic overview." The locknote! As opposed to the keynote!

Now, the etymology is a mess—keynote is a musical reference, and has nothing to do with opening locks. But never mind. I just like the sound of “locknote,” and I’m going to use it all the time.

Until the end of time.

Until the locknote of time.