Lexicographer at large
Lexicographer at large

Sue Butler AO

 
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cheeky

Cheek was in Old English the word for the jawbone, but it extended in meaning to cover the flesh between the jawbone and the eye.  The leap to the meaning ‘effrontery’ is not quite clear but the earliest example from 1823 is ‘But the rogue had such an invincible cheek, and so smooth and oily a tongue’.  So I think it is that impudent gesture of raising your face to your opponent.

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New words

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nostalgia goggles

I think that goggles are as familiar to us as glasses these days so whereas once we might have reached for glasses as our figurative viewing aid (rose-coloured glasses) now we can go with goggles (nostalgia goggles).   

It is perhaps related to the nostalgia filter used in cinematography, a warm filter that creates a dreamy, nostalgic effect.

ZG: 5

Probably not common

bluetoothing

In the context of drug taking this refers to the practice of a user withdrawing blood immediately after injecting and then injecting someone else with the drug-laced blood to give them what might be thought of as a secondary high.

ZG: 4

Part of the jargon of drug-taking.

officer-induced jeopardy

The inquest into the death an Indigenous youth brought to light this item of legal jargon in relation to the police.

ZG: 6

A legal term which was brought to public attention briefly.

Usage matters

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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
optionality

A contributor noticed that one of Trump’s advisors claimed that Trump liked optionality.  She queried the acceptability of optionality.

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."