Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist \TSYT-guyst; ZYT-guyst\ , noun;

1.[Often capitalized] The spirit of the time; the general intellectual and moral state or temper characteristic of any period of time.

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I've loved this word since I first saw it used in a sentence and had to go look it up to see what it meant. I actually considered using it for an MSN Group back when I was involved there, but "Zeitgeist" was already taken. (and annoyingly, the group was empty and not being used). After finding that out, I wanted to use some sort of alliteration such as "Zany Zeitgeist" but that was just a bit too cutesy.

I never did create a group using the word, though, because I wanted it to be a discussion group that adhered to the definition, namely current events and the politics of the day. After seeing how busy the successful groups were in that category, I changed my mind. I foresaw the hard thing wasn't just going to be keeping up with the news of the day, but also having to patrol the group, monitoring each and every post to keep it within the MSN Code of Conduct. I predicted it would quickly turn from fun to work - or at least a hassle - and MSN provided enough of that.