Vaguebook

While watching that video of the 2012 New Year’s Eve party, both the president and first lady realize they have something to hold over their rival’s head. What it is, exactly, remains unclear. Which is maddening; these two talk to each other the way some people “vaguebook” on Facebook.

There. You’ve just had a taste of VAGUEBOOKing, a fabulous word that has been around for a while, but which makes its New York Times Crossword debut today as VAGUEBOOKS. If you have an active Facebook account, you undoubtedly have at least one friend who tends to do this.

A less subtle way of navigating the relationship between the public and the obscure is found in subtweeting or vaguebooking (vague facebooking), the art of posting elliptically about a social situation without naming names.