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 word, created by a sales and marketing group, was pronounced by the Plain English Foundation to be one of their Worst Words of 2015.
ZG: 5
The word is likely to attract some attention from those people who hate it and wish it would go away.
Read MoreSmishing is the use of SMS messaging for fraudulent purposes, so it breaks down into SMS and phishing.
ZG: 4
This is not a common term, even for those who have been smished.
Read MoreThis one is not common but it caught my eye in a political article recently. Indeed it does seem to occur in either form in the context of politics where you are confronted by two options, neither of which comes up smelling like roses.
ZG: 3
The problem with this word is that however strong the stink from politics, our politicians don’t seem to be able to smell it.
Read MoreThis was the word which Macquarie Dictionary chose as its 2020 Word of the Year, giving a name to what we have all been doing over the course of the year prompted by bushfires, floods and the pandemic. We have been compulsively scrolling through the news on the latest disaster.
ZG: 6
Although this is an apt coinage and useful considering what we have been through, I am not sure of its currency.
We did not acquire the word for this activity until late in the year, taking it from American English where the suggestion is that it had been around since 2018 but achieved mainstream use when some American psychologists decided it was time to give people advice on how to stop this addictive habit. That was in the middle of the year. An American journalist made a feature of it and a few months later we were doomscrolling with the best of them.
An alternative word is doomsurfing.
Read MoreThe new hybrid office is an office in a business in which the staff spend part of their time working remotely, usually at home, and part of their time in the company office.
ZG: 8
The return to work is upon us so how this is to be managed and what the new work patterns will be is of great concern. It is also possible that nothing will be gained from the 2020 work experience and life will be just as it was before.
Read MoreThe discussion about the effectiveness of wearing masks to stop the spread of COVID-19 produced images of the cough cloud. There was debate about how far the cough cloud, the spray of tiny droplets emitted from someone’s mouth when they coughed, would carry.
ZG: 6
The image of the cough cloud produced a certain nervousness in the community as we became aware that we were wearing masks to protect ourselves, certainly, but mostly to protect others from our coughing.
Read MoreAmong the shortened forms giving us a sense of familiarity with COVID-19 and all its ways, there is sanny or hanny san for hand sanitiser, segro for segregation, and quarry or quazza for quarantine.
ZG: 7
None of these are as common as iso and the rona but they help to create an Aussie pandemic experience.
Read MoreThis is a term that has emerged in the rules and restrictions on behaviour governed by Covid-19. You are allowed to dance, but only in the style dubbed subtle dancing.
ZG: 7
Amusing as these terms are, we are going to have to get used to them and live our lives in a vertical and subtle way.
Read MoreThe new move in clothing choices is coming from the down-market end of tracksuits and loose-fitting tops with no bras, combined with sneakers. Quarantine style maintains comfort as the first requirement of clothing but then tries to dress it up a little.
ZG: 7
There is a theory that we will all be reluctant to give up quarantine style when office life returns to normal.
Read MoreThese are hotels designed to suit the needs of outpatients regularly attending hospital for treatment but otherwise not in need of hospital accommodation and supervision. During the pandemic these hotels have been used as hotels for the use of people in enforced quarantine.
ZG: 9
Quarantine hotels featured in the Melbourne second wave. The small outbreak in Adelaide alerted us all to the fact that they are called medical-hotels in South Australia.
Read MoreThese are the stocks that are taking a battering on the stock exchange now that there is the promise of a vaccine, stocks such as ZOOM and Netflix that flourished during the pandemic.
ZG: 5
A bit of stock market jargon but the rollercoaster of the markets has been something for us all to watch during the pandemic so we have observed the successes of the products that appeal during a pandemic.
Read MoreChart Throb was the title of a book by Ben Elton published in 2006. It was a spoof on a reality TV show which judged singing talent and good looks. Now chart throb refers to the election analysts who briefly become TV stars.
ZG: 4
It is American and it will probably have a fleeting currency here and then be forgotten until the next election, but we may start applying the term to our local analysts.
Read MoreWe became familiar with the term long-haulers back in July for those people who do not seem to recover from COVID-19. Their symptoms continue on, waxing and waning, but never entirely going away. There is now increasing acceptance that this is a very real thing for some people although there is still only speculation as to the causes.
ZG: 7
I suspect that the long COVID sufferers are indeed in it for the long haul and we will be discussing this syndrome for some time to come.
Read MoreThis was the day that Victorians had anxiously awaited. The end of the lockdown was in sight but a new cluster had suddenly developed and a lot of testing had been done in that area. The suspense built as the results were announced. No new cases and no deaths.
ZG: 7
We have now had a triple doughnut day — the third day of zero cases in Victoria.
This was a fleeting moment in the pandemic history but one that certainly Melburnians will remember.
Read MoreIt became clear early in the pandemic that tracing and testing was very much hampered by the need to send tests away to a lab for processing. Results might not come back for a couple of days, by which time the person tested might have been walking around as an infectious carrier of the virus for all that time. And so the search began for a rapid testing kit.
ZG: 6
This term may be with us for quite some time since the need to test widely and get results quickly is not going to go away.
Read MoreOne way of ensuring that mass testing is being carried out is to require employers to test twenty-five per cent of their workforce each week so that, over the period of a month, the entire staff is tested. This is described as surveillance testing.
ZG: 6
There seems to be an attempt to distinguish between sentinel testing which is mass testing of small pockets in the community, and surveillance testing which occurs in workplaces.
Read MoreDuring the lockdown in Victoria, the residents of Melbourne were not allowed to travel into regional Victoria. There were various checkpoints where travellers were stopped and sent back if they had no valid reason for crossing the line.
ZG: 6
Victorians would probably rate this term as having high frequency and significance. The rest of the country is not so concerned with it.
Read MoreThere are two definitions for wedding puptials. In the first scenario an attendant looks after the impeccably groomed dog which is attending the wedding of its owner, and in the second the dogs are part of an elaborate fundraiser.
ZG: 5
It has novelty value but engages a small section of the population who have fur babies.
Read MoreTechnology has come to the aid of music students and examiners who can no longer meet to conduct an exam. The students can prepare for a video exam, more correctly known by the AMEB (Australian Music Examinations Board) as a video repertoire exam.
ZG: 5
A concept which is a great significance to the small group of music students undertaking exams at the moment.
Read MoreVaccine diplomacy is a style of diplomacy which is focused on providing aid to countries to assist them in coping with the pandemic now and in obtaining the vaccine when and if it becomes available.
ZG: 7
This is a term that is likely to get more frequent use as we get closer to having a viable vaccine.
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