Words

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets.

It’s been some time since I wrote on words, although any of you who have stuck with me know that I love words.

Every year, the Oxford Living Dictionary, among others, determines one word for the year. Their word for 2018 is Toxic.

We are told – “The adjective toxic is defined as ‘poisonous’ and first appeared in English in the mid-seventeenth century from the medieval Latin toxicus, meaning ‘poisoned’ or ‘imbued with poison’”. Read the whole article for more interesting facts about toxic and its uses.

Some 1400 words were added to the dictionary in 2018. And so for your delectation and delight, here are some of them.;

•  A nothingburger –  a person or thing of no importance, value, or substance, especially something which, contrary to expectations, turns out to be insignificant or unremarkable.
• Glamping – It’s not just camping. It’s glamorous camping — and it usually means spending a night in the great outdoors with beds, electricity, and even indoor plumbing (so you’re not really outdoors at all)
• Bingeable –Merriam-Webster defines this adjective as “having multiple episodes or parts that can be watched in rapid succession,”.
• Goat – It stands for “greatest of all time,” and you’ll usually hear the acronym as a descriptor for LeBron James, Serena Williams, or Tom Brady.
• Denonym – a proper noun used to denote the natives or inhabitants of a particular country, state, city, etc.
• Mansplain — to explain something to a woman in a condescending way that assumes she has no knowledge about the topic.
• Deglobalization” is the process of making something less global and more regional in nature, focus, impact, etc.; esp. the reversal or decline of globalization, or its effects.
• Hangry is defined as bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.

Did you see  Business Insider’s January 5 article on the word of the year? – “The American Dialect Society named “tender-age shelter” the 2018 “Word of the Year.”  Read more here 

But probably my favourite word for the year is again Trumpism – the philosophy and politics espoused by Donald Trump.

So another rambling post from this ageing mind in a sunny but very windy Wellington, NZ.