A one-man mission to teach the world about a new language is picking up plenty of followers.

Graeme Whitfield, digital editor of The Journal in Newcastle, launched a quest to write a dictionary of 'English-journalese' – that unique language of misuse which seems to appear in newspapers but never real life.

His initial efforts were words such as 'tot' meaning child or 'slam' instead of criticise.

Now, his online blog has attracted visitors from all over the UK and even America as more than 100 comments have been posted with reader contributions.

Graeme admits that they are still a long way off from producing a full-on dictionary but has been surprised by the volume of traffic generated by the debate.

Some of the latest examples of journalese featured include "snarled" when referring to traffic, "pact" often used for political deals and "ace" as in the footballer.

Graeme told holdthefrontpage: "It does seem to have caught on.

"It got picked up by a few news aggregators like del.icio.us, where users put stuff online that they like, so we got a flurry of responses from America.

"I have been surprised by the number of responses we've got. It has certainly hit a nerve – I think it may be a bit of a guilty pleasure.

"There's a few I put up there that I am guilty of putting through the newsdesk here.

"Despite my efforts to stop people using these words, it hasn't worked.

"You still see 'tot' in the tabloids all the time. But it's nice to start a debate."

To contribute to the dictionary of journalese visit Graeme's blog.