This naturally follows generation alpha, the generation growing up after 2010 who took to social media like ducks to water.  Gen beta are the children growing up after 2025 who will be the first to have AI as a natural part of their lives. 

ZG: 7

Undoubtedly here to stay along with the rest of the set.

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Limb-lengthening is a medical procedure undertaken to correct birth defects, injuries and the effects of disease, but it is now being done for cosmetic reasons.

ZG: 4

Let us hope that the popularity of this procedure wanes.

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CAES (compressed air energy storage) is one solution to the problem of how to store energy from renewable resources to stabilise the grid. 

ZG: 4

Not a common term yet but it will be!

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Two American psychologists in 1956b identified a parasocial relationship as a one-sided relationship.  You may be infatuated with a movie star but the movie star doesn’t even know that you exist.

ZG: 5

The people in these relationships don’t use the term but increasingly it will be used about them by others.

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A bed designed to meet both the medical needs and the emotional needs of patients and caregivers as in palliative care or in the nursing of pre-term babies.  The bed is larger enough for two but can be separated into two single beds as required.

ZG: 4

A small number of people in the community will have the need for a cuddle bed.

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By announcing AI slop as their word of the year, Macquarie Dictionary has escaped being cancelled by all the primary teachers of Australia.  If they had chosen 6-7 it would have been a very different matter.

ZG: 7

While it is hugely topical at the moment, it could be here today and, we hope, gone tomorrow.

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This is the responsibility that digital platforms should bear for keeping their users safe and preventing online harms such as scams. 

ZG: 9

This is a big issue that affects us all.

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This is the blue from Bluetooth combined with the colloquialism snarf meaning ‘to eat greedily’. It is the theft of information from a device that uses Bluetooth technology.

ZG: 3

So many things we have to watch out for!

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Archeologists of the future, when they come to examine life on Earth in the Anthropocene, may also discover the products of technology which never break down.  Plastics will last forever. 

ZG: 4

Not a common term but a necessary one.

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Those of you who read naked running might be tempted to think that this is flying without instruments which would be interesting.  But no. Naked in this context means ‘without paraphernalia of any kind’, so naked flying is stepping onto a commercial airline with no baggage.

ZG: 4

While there is increased pressure to adopt this style of travel, most of us feel the need to cart a certain amount of our stuff with us.

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Once if a girl was labelled ‘weird’, that meant social ostracisation.  Now being weird has come to mean being highly individualistic, and authentic — that modern word of praise. 

ZG: 5

Playing with the idea of different styles of lit seems to be popular at the moment.

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Inflation is accompanied by a rise in the cost of living.  Friendflation is the rise in the cost of having friends and maintaining these friendships at regular social occasions which inevitably call for some expenditure.

ZG: 4

This is more a sociologist’s term for an observed trend. The people experiencing this may well discuss cossie livs but I doubt that they discuss friendflation.

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This is a visa introduced this year by China to attract STEM graduates to work in China.  It is seen as a step to attract more of the world’s best science and technology young talent to China in the race with the US.

ZG: 3

It will be interesting to see how this develops.

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If you have ever been confronted by a blank stare from a young person in response to something you have said, then you may have experienced the Gen-Z stare.  There are many explanations offered for this stare but the general opinion seems to be that it is the equivalent of D’uh! in non-verbal form.

ZG: 6

Intergenerational communication is often a puzzle.

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This has been a derogatory term in science fiction since the 1950s for a robot because they were seen as crude creations that made a clanking sound as they went on their way.

ZG: 5

We are very nervous of the AI revolution and robots are its main creature.

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We have had a long time to come up with various descriptions of writing that we think is less than the best.  Hackneyed, stale, prosaic.  So now we are beginning a similar assessment of the output from AI, whether it is text or images or a combination.

ZG: 8

We are sensitised at the moment to any nuance in our management of AI.

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Apparently about five years ago Trump was very much opposed to cancel culture and in favour of free speech.  But now he has discovered that free speech involves people saying derogatory things about HIM.

ZG: 4

I really don’t think this one will take off.

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Scambling (scam + gambling) is a broad term for any fraudulent online gambling.  Speculating on crypto currencies is described as a form of scambling.  The particular type of scambling that has become the scourge of remote Indigenous communities is one that they have called ding ding because of the sound of pokie machines used in the game.

ZG: 5

Not exactly a mainstream term but the effects of gambling in Indigenous communities is a major concern.

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This is the feeling of frustration experienced as a result of boredom with one’s work.  It is the opposite of burnout where you have been super stressed and worked harder than any mere mortal should.

ZG: 4

People like to play around with a word and create variations. Burnout is here to stay. I’m not sure that rustout will hang around for long.

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