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An Australianism we should import....

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
"Rort (verb or noun) : Cheating, fiddling, defrauding (expenses, the system etc.). Usually used of politicians.  Source  and here.

If the unbelievably tedious '-gate' suffix has to be applied to the shenanigans of the last few months, doesn't 'Rortgate' sound so  much neater than 'Expensesgate'?

Usage spotted here, and subsequently checked.

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posted by Croydonian

Political insults - Italian style

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
In a hugely cheering development, an Italian court has ruled that 'The language of political polemic can take on more pungent and incisive tones than those commonly used in private life''.

More particularly, 'rimbambito' (senile, gaga etc. A word that I will be field testing at the first opportunity. C) is parliamentary, or in this case, municipal language.

That the word got hurled by a small town mayor in a debate on the Kosovo war. Nothing like sticking to one's knitting, is there?

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posted by Croydonian

The decline and fall of Australian political invective

Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Paul Keating appears have lost his demon, judging from the transition from this:

"You just can't have a position where some pumped up bunyip potentate dismisses an elected government."

"The little desiccated coconut is under pressure and he is attacking anything he can get his hands on... (he is) still there araldited to the seat".

"For John Howard to get to any high moral ground he would have to first climb out of the volcanic hole he's dug for himself over the last decade. You know, it's like one of those deep diamond mined holes in South Africa, you know, they're about a mile underground. He'd have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium, let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd".

To this, in today's Sydney Morning Herald:

"In national terms, to have such a nong(1) - and [former Oz chancellor Costello] is, in policy terms he is a mouse - to have him back again, speaks volumes about the Liberal Party,'' Mr Keating said.

(1) - 'in Australian slang, nong is used as a pretty mild and/or endearing insult. a bit of a twit, or idiot. nothing too mean or horrid is meant by calling someone a nong'. Urban Dictionary

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posted by Croydonian

Advance Australia fair....

Monday, February 04, 2008
Rather late in the day, Oz lexicographers have come up with a word of the year for 2007, although it might better be termed a phrase:

Pod slurping

"Pod slurping, officially listed as a noun, is the downloading of large quantities of data to an MP3 player or memory stick from a computer". Source. I like it.

"The committee gave an honourable mention to the noun infomania - the tendency to give immediate attention to incoming messages such as email and text messages, resulting in constant distraction and a corresponding drop in the recipient's attention levels and work performance....The People's Choice Award went to password fatigue. This noun means the level of frustration caused by having too many different passwords to remember, resulting in an inability to remember even those most commonly used".

The people's choice disgraces the wit and ingenuity of our friends in the Antipodes.

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posted by Croydonian

'Bøv'

Saturday, December 22, 2007
A useful word I commend to all and sundry, it being a Danish neologism: "'bøv' (an amalgam of the Danish words for children and adult - børn og voksen - to depict someone who hasn't quite grown up)".

Better than kidult, eh?

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posted by Croydonian

Word of the Year

Monday, November 12, 2007
Yup, its that time of the year, again. And pretty poor I think the New Oxford American Dictionary's choice is too: 'locavore'. Maybe Merriam Webster will come up with a 2007 entry to rival 'truthiness'.

"The "locavore" movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers' markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation".

To adapt Ibsen, "Do not use that foreign word...We have that excellent native [phrase] 'allotment holders'".

Other entries of doubtless utility include:

'Upcycling: the transformation of waste materials into something more useful or valuable'.


'Previvor: a person who has not been diagnosed with a form of cancer but has survived a genetic predisposition for cancer'. This one is particularly ghastly, taking Latin roots for 'before' and 'live'. The horror... I suppose I am previving death at the moment.

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posted by Croydonian

Faith workers

Monday, September 03, 2007
The two gentlemen pictured below Amicus sees fit to call 'faith workers'.


I nominate 'faith worker' as the year's vilest neologism, and I seriously doubt that either the Chief Rabbi or the Archbishop of Canterbury will be putting it on their visiting cards any time soon.

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posted by Croydonian

Further neologisms, catch phrases and the like

Tuesday, March 06, 2007
This time it is from the Global Language Monitor that has come up with a list of top Words from Hollywood impacting the English Language'.

I cannot see anything even hinting at research methodology, but it is nevertheless amusing:

1 - “High Five!!!! It’s sexy time!” - From Borat the movie.
2 - Suri, Shiloh and other Hollywood baby names.
3 - Pursuit (Pursuit of Happyness). I cannot make any sense of what they are on about here.
4. Nazi bullets (Little Miss Sunshine) -- "I still got Nazi bullets in my ass."A catch all excuse.

10 - "The details of your incompetence do not interest me" Meryl Streep in 'The Devil Wears Prada', and by far the most interesting item on the list.


And because it never rains etc, I now have connectivity problems and am using someone else's connection. Further posting will depend on my ISP getting its act together or continued availability of the other connection.

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posted by Croydonian

Yet another word of the year, a startling admission from Roy Hattersley and other matters arising

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Roy first: "I regard myself as classless". So do I Roy, so do I.

The latest in the round of words of the year comes from our good friends in Australia, who are a little late to the lexicographical party, although they are nonetheless welcome.

Their offering is 'muffin top', "the fold of fat around the midriff which, on an overweight woman, spills out over the top of tight-fitting pants or skirts". Icky. Elsewhere, they have the self explanatory, not to say not exactly up to the minute, 'affluenza', 'ubersexual', 'cyberstalking', 'water trading', 'plausible deniability' and 'ethical eating'.

The last segues nicely into another tale of councils with nothing better to do than engage in moral grandstanding: York Council (guess which party runs it) is seeking to ban foie gras in restaurants within the city limits, following Chitown's example. So, all is sweet and dandy in chocolate town so the city fathers can afford to let their focus wander from the more mundane? Not quite. The last OFSTED report on York LEA noted the weakness of 'the pace of developing support for gifted and talented pupils', 'not all looked after children have personal education plans', and 'the analysis and use of data about racist remarks'. As to policing, crimes of violence against the person and sexual offences are above the national average. The councillor leading this, has something of an agenda: Paul Blanchard is a lacto-ovo vegetarian. He has terrible taste in music, although by and large he has decent taste in TV, films and blogs. And he got whipped when he ran for Ryedale in 2005.

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posted by Croydonian

Words of the year revisited

Monday, January 08, 2007
Knowing how many lexiphiles there are out there, I bring you the latest word of the year contest, this time courtesy of the American Dialect Society. And it is a corker:

"To pluto" - 'to demote or devalue someone or something'.

Other words / phrases with scope to go big:

"Data Valdez" - 'an accidental release of a large quantity of private or privileged information'

"Tramp stamp" - 'Tattoo on a woman's upper bottom or lower back'. (Loads of them in this neck of the woods - as becomes woefully clear in the summer. C)

Sounds like the ADS is used to being way, way ahead of the curve, as they crowned 'truthiness' their word of the year in 2005, Red / Blue states in 2004, metrosexual in 2003, WMD in 2002 and 9-11 in 2001.

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posted by Croydonian

Banning words

Monday, January 01, 2007
Lake Superior State University has been nominating words / phrases for banning for 32 years, and this year's list has just been released.

It includes our old friend 'truthiness', the debased use of 'awesome' and the toe-curlingly awful 'we're pregnant'.

Way back lost in the mists of time, I read a suggestion that English should be 'democratised' by having words excised by the language, and one of my English teachers was much taken with the idea and suggested starting with 'nice'.

Nominations please.


(Dodgy link sorted out...)

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posted by Croydonian

Monday, July 31, 2006
Odds and ends

Liberation has come up with a nifty neologism / done something horrible - delete as appropriate - to the French language today, referencing 'Première bloguerre mondiale' (first world blogwar) in an item on war blogging of current events. It notes that 'Israeli and Lebanese bloggers are all on the front line'.

For those not of a nervous disposition, there's a rather scary photo of Sarko and De Villepin in shorts here.

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posted by Croydonian

French neologisms

Friday, July 21, 2006
The Telegraph reports on the Academie Francaise's ongoing efforts to protect the French from anglicisms, a task much like trying to push back the Atlantic with a mop. I've had a look at the Academy's website and found a fair few things of interest, particularly foreign words that have gained French nationality, including ersatz, kitsch, bazooka, ayatollah, kibboutz, chianti , Kalachnikov and geisha.

They have had some success with ordinateur for computer, logiciel for software and so on, but the Academy is never going to move as quickly as usage. I'm a bit torn between thinking that the effort is in vain and represents unwarranted interference, and gruding admiration for their efforts. I'm not sure how many other countries have similar bodies policing the language, although I know there is one in Iceland. If memory serves, the Icelandic for television is a rendering of 'magic seeing box' or somesuch, as they wil insist on using old Norse root words for new concepts.

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posted by Croydonian