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 an overriding sense of disappointment with the straight world of heterosexuality which has been described as a prison with no way out and contrasted with the apparent liberation and adventurousness of the LGBTIQ+ world.
ZG: 4
While there are probably a number of heterosexual couple who might make the standard if somewhat negative jokes about their situation, they would not use this academic term for it.
Read MoreAs Volodymyr Zelensky has worked the phone, drumming up support for Ukraine from the world, we have become familiar with the term readout. This is the official text record of a telephone conversation between two political leaders or others in the realm of foreign affairs. Naturally such summaries of the conversation have to be done with great care.
ZG: 5
There has been an increasing number of significant telephone conversations for which we have needed the readout. The alleged conversation between Putin and Trump during the election campaign is the one that I would like to have.
Read MoreWe certainly hope that we won’t need to use the term terafire, a fire burning through more than 1 million hectares. The tera- prefix means ‘monster’.
Read MoreThese are the new sub-variants of Omicron which have emerged and been identified by the WHO. They have significant differences in their spike proteins from the earlier variants of Omicron which means that they can evade the antibodies provided in previous vaccines.
ZG: 4
They should be a household word but they are not.
Read MoreThis word which has been part of English since Anglo-Norman times has acquired a new meaning in the jargon of life coaches who teach their clients that there is a way for them to fulfil their dreams and become the person they think they might be if they follow some simple steps. The life coach promises that they can manifest their hopes and ambitions if they wish hard enough.
ZG: 6
Given the popularity of personal coaches and life coaches and business coaches, manifestation is on the increase.
ZG: 5
At least half of us have life coaches these days so I am guessing at a fifty per cent frequency.
Read MoreAs we have all pondered what is happening to our environment, we have become much more familiar with the concept of an ecology, that is, the interrelationship of organisms with the environment. This has proved to be a concept worth exploring in a range of situations, and so we have the ecomap, a visual rendering of the relationships that an individual or a family have with the community in which they live.
ZG: 4
A term that is confined to a specialist context but an interesting extension of the idea that we all live in an ecology.
Read MoreThis simple action has taken on a political significance in China. The younger generation in China, the Gen Z and young millennials, are beginning to think that life as it is ordained for them in China is not worth the struggle. Work is constant and stress is ever-present. The best thing to do is to lie down and it will all go away.
ZG: 3
Not much known outside China but interesting none the less.
Read MoreWhat a confusing world we live in where milk isn’t milk anymore and we have become doubtful about what exactly is in a sausage. Well, we always were doubtful about how much meat was in it but now we can expect that there is no meat at all.
ZG: 5
This is an item of official jargon rather than something we all discuss in the supermarket.
Read MoreThe monkeypox virus is related to the smallpox virus but was thought to be much less contagious. It is a virus found in monkeys in the 1950s and then found in humans in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1970s. It causes flu-like symptoms and skin rashes or lesions.
Read MoreBarnaby Joyce referred again to the weatherboard and iron people in his comments on his demotion but the other phrase which emerged was his characterisation of the change of leadership in the Nationals as merely changing the curtains.
ZG: 5
It remains to be seen whether this creative phrase will become a permanent feature of our political jargon.
Read MoreAustralians can proudly claim selfie as one of their most widely-used contributions to the English language. The ABC is also proud to have given the word a push when it was used by a participant in a chat room on their site in 2002. The participant stated later on that the word was in popular use at the time.
ZG: 8
Selfie itself would have a rating of 10 and for that reason people are also keen to latch onto these variations on the theme.
Read MoreThis is a therapy for addictions and ungovernable behaviours in which the sufferer is taught to use a state of mindfulness to ride out an urge in the way a surfer rides out a wave. Just like the wave, an urge will start gradually, build to a peak and then fade away.
ZG: 7
Given the number of us who need to control an urger of some kind, whether it is the desire to consume food or alcohol, or to give in to a tantrum, this therapy will become well known.
Read MoreIn Australia have picked up the American colloquialism nimrod meaning ‘an idiot’. It has been around for a few years but has probably gained in frequency in recent years. I don’t think that anyone using it today is aware of its history in relation to Bugs Bunny or the Bible.
ZG: 7
A fairly common colloquialism. A new and fashionable way of saying someone is an idiot in a mild kind of way.
Read MoreWhen it comes to lambs, IMF is what you are looking for. IMF stands for intra muscular fat, which is what makes cooked lamb juicy. It is measured as the fat percentage in the loin muscle of a lamb and visible as marbling. Lamb producers are now being paid a bonus according to the percentage of IMF they have in their product.
ZG: 3
This one is still in planning so it is not common knowledge yet, but no doubt it will be.
Read MoreThe co-infection of COVID-19 and flu, likely to happen this winter, has been given the name flurona. While there is an increased chance of this happening, it is not common.
ZG: 5
A jokey word that helps us to prepare for the winter combination of increased COVID and flu.
Read MoreThe feminist dream of the 80s was that women could have it all — a career and a family at the same time. While women were still stumbling around trying to make themselves as much like men as possible in the workplace, we had the rise of the girlboss, the entrepreneurial young woman who created a business or a start-up and rose to the heights of success rapidly.
ZG: 4
This is a concept that some people would like us to address but not one that everyone has taken on board.
Read MoreJust as there is war on land and at sea, so now there is war in the electromagnetic spectrum. This can be classified as attacking, protective or supportive.
ZG: 5
We are slowly becoming more conscious of the aspects of modern warfare that we need to consider and deal with.
Read MoreThis is something that is newish to the world and definitely new to us because as part of the AUKUS deal we are about to develop them in cooperation with the US and the UK. They are also topical because Russia fired its first hypersonic missile into Ukraine. Russia is the first country ever to test this kind of missile in combat.
ZG: 5
Those who are into military hardware will find this of interest. The rest of us would prefer to leave them alone.
Read MoreThis is a small park created in a parking space. The original idea came from San Francisco in 2005 where two co-workers found a parking space nearby, put money in the meter for a couple of hours and quickly created a parklet using a roll of turf, a park bench and a potted tree. Two hours later they packed it all up.
ZG: 4
They are not common at the moment but the enthusiasm for them is there so maybe there will be more.
Read MoreAn alternative name for this is sobriety coach. Apart from the coach in sport we have had life coach, business coach, health coach, and now we have sober coach, the person who can assist a person who wants to stay sober by analysing the danger points in their lives and finding strategies for dealing with them.
ZG: 5
This one is low-level frequency at the moment but definitely on the up and up.
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