Lexicographer at large
Lexicographer at large

Sue Butler AO

 
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English is an Asian language

The result of my trip to Singapore in 1991 was the inclusion of a number of items from Hong Kong English, and  more from  Philippine English, in the next edition of the Macquarie Dictionary.  Our mantra was : English is an Asian language.  This passed without comment in Australia and in Asia and the rest of the world.

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New words

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K-beauty

From K-pop we have moved to K-beauty.  We now follow obsessively the skin treatments and cosmetics that are coming from South Korea. 

ZG: 4

I’m sure the younger generation is very much aware of the allure of K-beauty.

gen-Z stare

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.

clanker

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.

Usage matters

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based on or based off

Particles are the little words that we used to class as prepositions.  Goodness knows what they are called now.   When they are used in conjunction with verbs, they fuse with the verb  to create  a compound verb with a new meaning. 

batted and battered

The starting point is bat meaning ‘a stout piece of wood’ which surprisingly has an uncertain origin.  It might be a French borrowing, it might be Old English but borrowed from French, it might be Celtic, it might be coined from the sound the stick makes.  It is followed closely by batter to hit repeatedly which is a French borrowing.  The two are obviously linked.

five and two

Sue at TEDxSydney

"There are those who want the dictionary to censor aspects of language that they deem to be unsavoury or undesirable. But language moves on."

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Sue on the ABC's The Link

"I think with blasphemy you are actually going back to the 1600s where if you took the name of God in vain, that would produce the kind of strong reaction that we have to taboo words today.

Those sorts of taboos are losing their force and the F word, I think, would be regarded as still an emphatic colloquialism, but a colloquialism, not a taboo word."

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