Word of the Year

It’s that time of the year when all the dictionaries announce their Word of the Year.  The OED has run with goblin mode, voted in by its subscribers.  Merriam-Webster checks the word which has been most frequently looked up on its website. This year it was gaslighting as the spotlight was thrown on the way in which women are manipulated in abusive relationships.  Collins had a good list if you are looking for a set of words that reflect how life was in Britain this last year: Partygate (Boris and friends), Carolean (the adjective from Charles), warm bank (a place to go to get warm when your own house is freezing), and quiet quitting (resolving to work official hours and not give over your whole life to your work).  They went for words which had significance as much as for out-and-out new words.  Ultimately Collins chose permacrisis (a state of permanent world-wide instability and upheaval).  Macquarie Dictionary and the Australian National Dictionary both went for teal (basically Liberal but with environmental concerns).

I have reviewed my own collection of words for this year and my first impression is that we had a relatively dull year.  A slight greyness over everything.  In the previous two years there was a rush of COVID words and COVID jokes that provided easy pickings but this year there were only a few new variants to name along with a few new discoveries about life with COVID such as flurona, Covid rebound and hybrid immunity.

Politics provided the greatest interest — it was an election year — with terms like hinge point, grey corruption, singing Kumbaya, and teal candidate.   There were a few colloquialisms like bougie (excellent), bachelor’s handbag (takeaway roast chook in a plastic bag), a nimrod (an idiot), and a cooker (right-wing extremist with anti-vax and government conspiracy ideas).

In terms of things that had more general interest, there was e-change, goblin mode, sober coach, heteropessimism, soft life, technology abuse, and situationship.   

So what to choose?

I have to go with teal.  It was the one genuinely new shift in Australian politics and is going to be influential for some time. We did acquire the idea and the word from New Zealand but never mind that. Some of our  best ideas and biggest achievers come from New Zealand.

I would like to give honourable mention to:

adulting

singing Kumbaya

quiet quitting

eshay

cooker

You can look these up on my website.

And that’s it from me until the third week in January and we start the whole collection all over again.