These are new words or phrases that have caught my eye. My definition of a new word is one which is not in the Macquarie Dictionary online.
Some words seem to have more significance than others in terms of reflecting changes in the Australian culture, so I will give each word a Zeitgeist rating (ZG) within a range of 1-10.
If you disagree with the rating that I give, please argue your case in the comment field provided.
I would love you to contact me if you have made any new word discoveries of your own.
This is the name given to the povety experienced by women and girls who are unable to access resources during their menstruation period, because of lack of finances or lack of facilities provided at schools and workplaces.
ZG: 4
There is a global movement to eliminate period poverty which has given the expression frequency in some political circles.
Read MoreThe quiet Australians are the people nominated by Scott Morrison as his support base, the people who agree with his policies but don’t make a huge fuss the way the noisy elite do about what THEY think is right for the country.
ZG: 9
This expression was immediately picked up as one of significance in Australian politics this year. It is likely to be around for some time to come.
Read MoreThis is the sense of guilt that some of us have now in relation to our air travel, an activity that is one of the greatest contributors to greenhouse emissions.
ZG: 7
Australians are probably slower to pick up on this particular guilt than the Europeans because our need for air travel is greater.
Read MoreIt seems that Bill Shorten might have come up with the title bus captain when he invited Kristina Keneally to be his spokesperson on the campaign bus. The last election was all about buses.
ZG: 6
Perhaps in the next election buses will be considered passé as will the bus captions that go with them. Surely we can’t have the bus competition again!
Read MoreCongestion busting is a theme of political discussion this year. Infrastructure is planned that will reduce the volumes of traffic on the road, sort out the traffic jams and remove the blockages from the road systems.
ZG: 8
Since the problem of congestion on the roads is getting worse, this is a term that will be bandied around for some time.
Read MoreThe negatives are the asylum seekers left in PNG with nowhere to go. Australia won’t have them, the Americans won’t take them, and PNG doesn’t want them.
ZG: 6
It is not a term that we use but one that we have picked up from PNG. It is low frequency as is all stifled discussion of refugees in this position.
Read MoreThis is a term that has achieved recent popularity as a description for the practice of using legislation not for the good of the country but to try to increase a party’s chances of winning the next election.
ZG: 6
A popular insult in politics at the moment but will it survive to the next election.
Read MoreThe classic example of bothsidesism has become the response of Trump in 2017 to the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump commented that ‘there were very fine people on both sides’.
ZG: 7
This is a political strategy that is being widely adopted at the moment, so the term is here to stay.
Read MoreThe term anchor baby was coined in the U.S in the early 1990s and refers to a child born to an immigrant mother who is illegally in the U.S. without citizenship.
ZG: 5
So far Peter Dutton is on his own in adopting this term from American English. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Read MoreThis lily pad has been handed to us from the US where they developed a strategy for developing small bases on islands scattered throughout the Pacific. Lots of lily pads in the big pond.
ZG: 4
A bit of military jargon but if a lily pad comes to pass in Darwin it will start to mean something for us all.
Read MoreThe Queensland state election of 2017 produced the Gympie Line. Apparently the LNP warned Malcolm Turnbull that he would not go down well with voters above Gympie and that it would be better if he did not cross the Gympie Line.
ZG: 7
What happens with voters above the Gympie Line is of great interest in this 2019 election.
Read MoreThis is the spreading of ideas through social media, usually through images and tweets that attack a particular person, organisation, political party, etc., and that bring about a change in public opinion.
ZG: 9
Increasingly we are becoming aware of the threats to society that exist on unregulated social media. Since we also seem to be powerless to do anything about it, we can expect meme warfare to continue.
Read MoreNarrowcasting has become a term in politics for the transmission of political messages to the particular groups in society that will respond well to them.
ZG: 7
Every election produces a new set of terms to meet a different style of politics delivered in a different way. The crossover from marketing to politics is familiar. This is one of the new marketing terms to make the transition.
Read MoreThe notion of fatigue as weariness and disenchantment with a particular issue or phenomenon dates back to the 1940s in America.
ZG: 8
The collection of fatigues that we have identified has been growing quite steadily for some time now, so I predict that there will be more fatigues to come, now that everyone is looking out for them.
Read MoreIn politics the Westminster bubble and the Washington bubble predate the Canberra bubble by a couple of decades.
ZG: 7
We are likely to hear more about the Canberra bubble in the electioneering that awaits us.
Read MoreL-plate leader, L-plate politician. These epithets have become a very Australian way of deriding our politicians.
ZG: 6
High marks for Australian connotations but low marks as just another bit of sloganeering emerging from Canberra.
Read MoreThis seems to have become popular in the jargon of business and politics where it means a point at which there is intense tension and conflict.
ZG: 5
A catchy bit of jargon but not hugely significant. Alliteration always gives a phrase staying power.
Read MoreIt seems that all governments have one, these days. This is a unit that devises interventions based on behavioural science to persuade citizens to do what is considered desirable.
ZG: 7
It seems scary to contemplate a future where we think that we are acting from our own free will but in fact are being manipulated to do so. Even if the intentions are good.
Read MoreWe want to ensure our privacy online while acknowledging that the big data obtained there can be very useful. Differential privacy is the system that keeps the privacy of the individual by introducing random noise into the data.
SG: 5
This is an important concept but it is not something that the average person will be discussing over the dinner table. It is a piece of techie jargon.
Read MoreScott Morrison is our first Pentacostal prime minister, espousing a brand of religion that suits the aspirations of Western capitalism.
ZG: 7
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