Lexicographer at large
Lexicographer at large

Sue Butler AO

 
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LATEST BLOG

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smack of jellyfish

The day began with a story about a smack of lion’s mane jellyfish in Port Phillip Bay.  Apparently there are a wide variety of these jellyfish ranging from monsters as big as a fridge in Antarctica to the small red ones that normally inhabit the bay.  They are there in profusion at the moment.

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New words

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FAFO

I don’t know if you, like me, were puzzled by the comment made by U.S. Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth in explaining — justifying? — the snatching of Nicolás Maduro.  ‘He effed around and he found out’. 

ZG: 6

The phrase is probably more common in America than it is in Australia but FAFO parenting is trending.

choc-lit

Chick-lit we know.  Bridget Jones’ Diary, published in 1996, was one of the first.  Australian Indigenous author, Anita Heiss, decided to make use of the popular genre to introduce mainstream Australia to Indigenous culture and history.  It was to be chick-lit with a purpose.

ZG: 5

The enthusiasm for creating various different lits has not slackened. This one should be popular this year.

hybrid attack

This term originated in the world of hacking where attempts are made to discover a password.  The hybrid attack combines two strategies.

ZG: 4

Not a common term yet but one we will encounter more frequently.

Usage matters

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presence and prevalence

I heard a news report on the increase of the prevalence of the police in the CBD — and wondered.  I think that, while you can increase the presence of the police force in the CBD, you can’t increase its prevalence.

mental health

So frequently are we discussing mental health problems and mental health conditions that the phrase mental health is acquiring severely negative connotations. 

tubes and discs

I remember this discussion happening once before — that vegetarian or vegan sausages and burgers should not be referred to using these basic terms but rather described as tubes and discs. Enter the hero of the hour, Paul McCartney, who called for the ban to be dropped.

Sue at TEDxSydney

"There are those who want the dictionary to censor aspects of language that they deem to be unsavoury or undesirable. But language moves on."

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Sue on the ABC's The Link

"I think with blasphemy you are actually going back to the 1600s where if you took the name of God in vain, that would produce the kind of strong reaction that we have to taboo words today.

Those sorts of taboos are losing their force and the F word, I think, would be regarded as still an emphatic colloquialism, but a colloquialism, not a taboo word."

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