One of the more interesting linguistic developments of the recent times is the rise of the hyphenated term "cow-orker."

The first time I saw it, I—like you—thought it was a typo for "co-worker." It took a couple more uses for me to realize it was more than that.

Next I assumed that it was just a sloppy Marxist pun, implying that workers are cows, and therefore your "co-worker" is your "co-cow" and thus your "co-cow-worker." If that were all I might walk away with a certain grumbling mis-satisfaction. But when I saw no less a language artist than Cory Doctorow using it (above) I knew it was even more than that.

Quite a good amount of contemplation was required before I hit about the true nature of this polyglot pun. As above, a "cow-orker" is a "cow-worker." An "Orker," in its simplest form, is just this: a user of Orkut. So a "cow-orker" is, rather gloriously, a co-cow-worker who labors away on his or her Orkut profile, and is connected to you on that service, and is thus a co-Orker as well as a co-cow and a co-cow-worker.

Cow-orker. Know it. Dig it. Use it.