Off topic: The word of the year Thread poster: Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
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Another interesting article published on “The Economist” this week. Enjoy!
“And the word of 2022 is…
The word of the year is neither clever nor lovely. But it is hugely consequential
The story of a year is sometimes easy to identify: the financial crisis of 2008, the Brexit-Trump populist wave of 2016 or the pandemic of 2020. The most wrenching event of 2022 has been the war in Ukraine, yet those earlier stories have lingered in the headlines. For language... See more Another interesting article published on “The Economist” this week. Enjoy!
“And the word of 2022 is…
The word of the year is neither clever nor lovely. But it is hugely consequential
The story of a year is sometimes easy to identify: the financial crisis of 2008, the Brexit-Trump populist wave of 2016 or the pandemic of 2020. The most wrenching event of 2022 has been the war in Ukraine, yet those earlier stories have lingered in the headlines. For language-watchers, all that meant much new vocabulary to consider.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine obliged newsreaders to practise place-names from Kharkiv to Zaporizhia. It also introduced weapons previously known only to experts: manpads, nasams, himars and the like. (Soldiers have long had a flair for acronyms, not just the official kind but in contributions like fubar and snafu.) A debate also developed about whether it is culturally or militarily appropriate to refer to kamikaze or suicide drones, drones being by definition pilotless. Loitering munitions lacks a certain snap.
The economic problems to which the war contributed brought new words too. The catchiest in that subcategory is shrinkflation, whereby companies hide price increases by downsizing products while keeping price tags unchanged. It is a perfect portmanteau (a word built from parts of others). It not only points to an important thing, but its component parts are transparent so that it requires little explanation. No wonder Shaquille O’Neal, a retired American basketball star, used it in a pizza advertisement—a measure of success, perhaps.
Business, economics and finance are perennial sources of new jargon, some bits more enduring than others. The slowdown of China’s economy led to increased talk of decoupling (of Western businesses from China’s). International frictions led to a boom in friendshoring: a kind of reverse offshoring in which supply chains are redirected to stable, ideally allied countries, rather than those invading their neighbours or pursuing self-harming covid policies.
Focusing on China, zero covid might be the obvious word of this year. China’s lockdowns and crackdowns provoked rare public protests in big cities, and forced an unusual and public retreat from some elements of the policy late in the year. In Chinese the authorities called their policy dongtai qingling, meaning “dynamic clearing to zero”; that sounds rather more heroic than locking millions of people into their homes.
Climate change also contributed vocabulary in 2022, a year of extreme weather and eco-anxiety. A torrid summer saw governments set up public cooling centres. Come the winter, soaring fuel prices introduced their cold-weather equivalents, warm banks. At the cop27 climate-change summit in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, loss and damage took centre stage. Rich countries, whose industrialisation has largely caused climate change, promised to set up a fund to redress the harms already done, or certain to be done, in poorer ones. Loss and damage become a new pillar in climate politics, alongside limiting further change (mitigation) and making countries more resilient (adaptation).
Facebook renamed itself Meta in 2021 and spent vast sums in 2022 trying to activate the metaverse, an online world in which people can interact via avatars and virtual-reality goggles. Instead profits drooped as the company struggled even to get its employees to inhabit its metaverse. The word was a finalist in Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year contest, but was not selected. Perhaps another year. This is still a word (and a world) looking for users.
Instead, Oxford’s choice this year—based on a public vote—was goblin mode, a state in which people indulge their laziest or most selfish habits. After years of covid, recession and inflation, people are tired and frazzled and finding it harder to keep up appearances. But another product of the covid era is Johnson’s word of the year.
After the lockdowns of 2020, followed, in 2021, by a slow return to the office, 2022 was the year that hybrid work settled in. Working at home some of the time has advantages (decongesting cities and fewer painful commutes), and disadvantages (fears of lower productivity combined with a sense of never being off duty). In the spring Twitter announced a policy of unlimited working from home for those who wanted it. When Elon Musk bought the company, he promptly decreed the opposite. But most firms have not gone to either extreme, instead trying to find the best of both worlds.
As a coinage, hybrid work is no beauty. But it will reshape cities, careers, family life and free time. That is ample qualification for a word of the year."
Season's greetings and all the best wishes for 2023!
Teresa ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:38
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Never heard of any of these | Dec 24, 2022 |
“And the word of 2022 is…
.... manpads, nasams, himars .... shrinkflation.....friendshoring... dongtai qingling......goblin moder."
My words of the year are:
greenwashing
gaslighting
absolutely
likely (instead of "probably")
LGBTQ+
MC+HNY to you all but not me because I don't do Christmas.
[Edited at 2022-12-24 16:22 GMT]
| | | | Jessica Noyes 
United States
Local time: 14:38
Member
Spanish to English
+ ...
My word of the year is "struggling".
I don't know how we ever got along without it. People are said to be "struggling" with depression, economic insecurity, low self-esteem, and endless other issues, large and small. I don't know if this is just a North American phenomenon, but it's definitely in very common use around here.
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 21:38
Member
English to Turkish
| Phrase of the year | Dec 24, 2022 |
I don't have a word, but I have a phrase: "with the greatest of respect (of course)"
This was uttered, twice, by the Sky Sports presenter following England's defeat against France about two weeks ago, lamenting the 'missed opportunity' to face Morocco in the semi-finals and then of course going all the way and lifting the trophy (doubtless with Kane paying back the Argies by scoring a goal with his hand... One on one with Bastardo, what a header!!!).
The presenter was saying if only... See more I don't have a word, but I have a phrase: "with the greatest of respect (of course)"
This was uttered, twice, by the Sky Sports presenter following England's defeat against France about two weeks ago, lamenting the 'missed opportunity' to face Morocco in the semi-finals and then of course going all the way and lifting the trophy (doubtless with Kane paying back the Argies by scoring a goal with his hand... One on one with Bastardo, what a header!!!).
The presenter was saying if only Kane had scored that penalty then it was Morocco in the semi-finals, 'with the greatest of respect of course' to Morocco (which essentially meant no respect at all, they're just a bunch of pushovers). I really wish they had edged out France and faced Morocco and then had their bleeding hats handed to them with the greatest of respect.
Anyways, I've learned this expression in English and I aim to use it when the occasion arises. ▲ Collapse
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| Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Empty post | | The war in Ukraine has reintroduced these words and phrases into our vocabulary | Dec 25, 2022 |
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has many of us using new words and phrases, from geopolitical terms like "rump state" to military lingo such as "MANPADS."
We're also learning to decipher slogans and spot differences between Russian and Ukrainian spellings during a conflict in which information is treated as its own battlefield.
Tracking surges in the words we use is part of linguist Grant Barrett's job. He is the co-host of A Way with Words, a public radio show about words... See more Russia's invasion of Ukraine has many of us using new words and phrases, from geopolitical terms like "rump state" to military lingo such as "MANPADS."
We're also learning to decipher slogans and spot differences between Russian and Ukrainian spellings during a conflict in which information is treated as its own battlefield.
Tracking surges in the words we use is part of linguist Grant Barrett's job. He is the co-host of A Way with Words, a public radio show about words and language, and a vice president of the American Dialect Society.
"As a word watcher, we get a sense of the worries of the world," he told NPR.
Barrett points out how the term Cold War has now been supplanted by the term "hot war" — a violent conflict with many of the worst burdens borne by civilians.
With Barrett's help, NPR created a kind of war glossary, explaining some of the terms people are using to discuss the war Russia and President Vladimir Putin are waging on Ukraine.
Appeasement
The Western world is debating whether permitting Putin to retain some of the territory he has seized would "be like the 1938 appeasement of Hitler by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain," Barrett said.
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/21/1086709135/russia-ukraine-war-military-terms-lingo-phrases ▲ Collapse
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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida wrote:
Another interesting article published on “The Economist” this week. Enjoy!
... [metaverse] was a finalist in Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year contest, but was not selected. Perhaps another year. This is still a word (and a world) looking for users.
Instead, Oxford’s choice this year—based on a public vote—was goblin mode
Oxford Dictionaries seem to base their choices of new and popular words on a different version of English from the one I speak (or read, or hear).
I had never heard of "goblin mode" until they announced it was word of the year. I have still not heard anybody use it, or read it in print, except in this particular context.
I guess I must be out of touch with the Zeitgeist. Or something.
[Edited to remove stray quote]
[Edited at 2022-12-25 05:18 GMT]
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule |
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| Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:38
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Jessica Noyes wrote:
My word of the year is "struggling".
I don't know how we ever got along without it. People are said to be "struggling" with depression, economic insecurity, low self-esteem, and endless other issues, large and small. I don't know if this is just a North American phenomenon, but it's definitely in very common use around here.
Here, here in the UK too. "The government will struggle to meet its targets" etc.
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Post quoted has been removed | | New words in 2022 | Dec 25, 2022 |
For me the new words/phrases that stuck with me in 2022 were:
In English: digital slomad, bomb weather, twindemic
In French: covidé, effet Matilda
In Italian: bromance, dissare
In Spanish: buenismo, postureo
In Portuguese: e-demoracia, gastronomia de quilómetro zero, wokismo
And most of all:
In Ukrainian: Sláva Ukrayíni!
[Edited at 2022-12-25 12:54 GMT]
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| French Belgian new word for 2022 | Dec 28, 2022 |
I’ve just heard on the Belgian TV news that the new word for 2022 chosen by the readers of a Belgian newspaper is “vélotaffer”, a verb meaning "to use the bicycle as a means of transport for home-to-work or business trips". The word is a contraction of "vélo" and "taffer" and reflects the changes in mobility in Belgium.
| | | | Nikolay Novitskiy
Russian Federation
Local time: 23:38
Member (2018)
English to Russian
Let the word of the year in Russia be... His Majesty's Charles III name
There is a trick with it in our language: when He was a prince we translated His name as "Чарльз" (Charles). But when He became a King in October, we turned His name into "Карл" (Karl). Many people here in Russia thought that the King had changed His name for some reason! ... See more
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[Modifié le 2022-12-30 18:47 GMT]
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