To eat something up is to do it easily and well. In the context of fashion that means pulling off a good look with amazing clothes and fabulous makeup.
ZG: 7
The older generation may not know it but the young ones do.
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The term sanewashing was coined in 2007 by an American academic, Dale Carrico. But it was a word that was desperately needed this year in which Trump won the Presidency and so increased markedly in frequency.
ZG: 4
Not a common word — yet!
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When the Penrith Beach was first opened in 2023 there were many who were doubtful that it would be popular.
ZG: 7
Probably this has even greater currency out west but it has been accepted and added to the list of joke Australian placenames.
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A grainy low-resolution image implies that the content of the message — the joke in the meme is more important than the artwork. It is the visual equivalent of swift repartee in speech.
ZG: 7
This could be something we encounter more often in an election year.
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A friend sent me a Christmas present which I am passing on. Do you know what it means when you say ‘he went to Turkey’? It means that he had a hair transplant.
ZG: 7
Cosmetic and medical tourism have been flourishing for many years now but Turkey seems to have captured a niche market.
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This is the shortened form of timesheet fraud which is the deliberate filling out of a timesheet with incorrect details of work breaks and arrival and departure times.
ZG: 6
With the tug-of-war between employers and employees over work practices we can expect more people to be charged with this.
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This is a new police procedure. We have had for some time now the wand which is a handheld electronic device used to detect concealed illegal weapons. But in NSW the police procedure became legal in early December this year.
ZG: 7
This will become all too familiar now.
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Our ability to go on social media doing the silliest things has encouraged a wide variety of lunatic activities and rawdogging is one of them.
ZG: 6
Probably just a thing of the moment. At least you would hope so.
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This is also referred to as digital Taylorism or new Taylorism. The American engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) came up with a method of industrial management in which each task was broken down into its simplest elements and each worker was given one of those elements to learn and perform.
ZG: 4
While the protests have been noisy, the theory behind the practices considered objectionable has been more academic — but interesting.
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If you find that your brain is constantly swerving away from the topic in hand to present thoughts to you about what you might eat next, what might be very, very yummy, what you simply have to eat NOW, then you are suffering from food noise.
ZG: 6
There are many who would welcome the silencing of food noise so this one has currency.
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This use of Ohio to mean ‘daggy, weird’ comes from a meme called Only in Ohio. I find it surprising that Australian kids would respond to this but the universality of memes seems to be enough to make it fashionable even in Oz.
ZG: 4
It is in use but I doubt that it will last long.
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This kind of metaphorical battery powers your social life. If you socialise too much it can be drained, leaving you without any energy to relate to other people. You will need to recharge it before you can go on.
ZG: 6
There is an increasing number of words relating to the pressure we feel to engage with or disengage from others.
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The Oasis concerts in Australia will be free of dynamic pricing (or surge pricing) we are told. The Gallagher brothers have said that it presents ‘an unacceptable experience for fans’.
ZG: 8
The situation with these concerts has triggered an inquiry into dynamic pricing so it is high on everyone’s agenda at the moment.
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This is what happens to your brain when you subject it to an endless diet of internet and social media rubbish. The stuff that you watch is then also referred to as brainrot (sometimes spelled as two words brain rot).
ZG: 7
We know that brain rot is mindless and time wasting but we cannot stop ourselves.
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Whoever can put a name to a different (and better) style of parenting is onto a winner. This one invokes the image of the lighthouse — guiding and leading the child to safety but not particularly hands-on, allowing the child to develop by experiencing their own initiatives and disasters.
ZG: 5
Those becoming parents are subjected to all sorts of trending advice.
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This is a Rugby League joke. It is the game played to decide who gets the wooden spoon for the season.
ZG: 5
A popular joke but in a small community.
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The word canon has travelled a long way. The starting point is the Ancient Greek word kanon which meant ‘a straight rod’, and then a rule or standard.
ZG: 6
The fact that this term has moved from niche online use to mainstream means that it has achieved currency.
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One word — birthkeeper, or two — birth keeper. The term is new and has not settled down yet. The activity is birth keeping which is defined in the broadest possible way as giving support or assistance to a woman giving birth. (This implies a free birth).
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This is a person who talks incessantly. The word seems to have greater frequency than capaholic, a pathological liar. And I guess we are more familiar with the verb to yap meaning ‘to prattle on’ than we are with to cap meaning ‘to lie’.
ZG: 6
An amusing bit of slang from the younger generation.
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We all know the term mule in relation to drugs trafficking. This is the person who is paid to act as a drug courier. The money mule is paid to transfer money rather than drugs.
ZG: 3
A variation in trafficking jargon that has surfaced to the mainstream recently.
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