January: A Repository for Overused Words and Phrases
I'm not sure how it happens, but there are certain phrases that catch on in a way that feels… unnatural. It's like there are certain phrases manufactured to perfectly frame a particular subject, but perhaps in a way that's too perfect, too well considered. You hear these phrases all the time, but when you hear someone you know say them you think "that's strange, you've never used that phrase before and yet I've heard it all the time." I certainly do at least. Seems like others may have as well.
The idea is that this website serves as a repository for these phrases. So the necessary question: why a website?
Part of the quality that these phrases is that they're based in a particular moment in time. An event might trigger them, or they'll be used to the point of people becoming a bit too aware of the trope. So there's a sense of change; the overused phrase of this month could be different than that of the next. There needs to be some way to keep track of change over time.
Another consideration is that these phrases must be recognized as being overused. Maybe I think the phrase "the new normal" is overused, but unless others agree it's hard to say. This is a good application for some kind of popularity metric, which will be an interesting change of pace for me. Regardless, the point is that there should be some degree of intersubjective agreement on the phrases. Some kind of technology could help with that. A website feels fairly natural.
How will it be built?
For this site I think I'll start with a standard REST API built with express. The frontend will be built with svelte, since I'm still learning the framework and would like to improve my skills. The implementation should be fairly straightforward, the tricky part comes from keeping the actual functionality as minimal and essential as possible.
By next weekend I will need to have figured out the primary affordances and features and have designed the interface. That gives me two weeks to implement and an extra for when stuff goes wrong. This month I have about 4-5 hours to spend each week, so something like 20-25 hours total. Seems doable.