Skeuomorph

Last week's Word of the Week at Oxford University Press blog:

Word: skeuomorph [SKYOO-oh-morf] a decoration that takes its form from the nature of the material used or the method used to make it. The word is also used for an object that copies the design of a similar object made in another material-- a plastic Adirondack chair would be a skeuomorph. From Greek words meaning 'form' and 'vessel.'

So ANYTHING copied in plastic is a skeuomorph. Like those vinyl boots that have seam-marks molded right into them because they are copies of leather ones. Those plastic Japanese laundry baskets with the marks of woven reeds molded into them. Len suggests a veggie burger: it looks like meat, it's really not. And Krab made from fish paste and colored to look like crab legs.

I wonder about "takes its form from the nature of the material used" -- would this include a ram's horn made into a sound producing device; that is, a shofar? Chain-saw sculpture made out of a tree? Chia pets? A coffee table made of a tree root?

The poor Greeks: they didn't have plastic, I guess they were thinking of gourds made into drinking vessels, or ceramic drinking vessels made to look like gourd vessels. (If the word really does date back to the Greeks, rather than having been made up from Greek roots more recently.)

I'm afraid actually using this wonderful word would be wildly ostentatious. Too bad.