New words — Sue Butler — Lexicographer at large

Lexicographer at large

New Words

These are new words or phrases that have caught my eye. My definition of a new word is one which is not in the Macquarie Dictionary online.

Some words seem to have more significance than others in terms of reflecting changes in the Australian culture, so I will give each word a Zeitgeist rating (ZG) within a range of 1-10.

If you disagree with the rating that I give, please argue your case in the comment field provided.

I would love you to contact me if you have made any new word discoveries of your own.

postbiotic

postbiotic

First we had antibiotics. Then in the 1950s we learned about probiotics (the opposite of antibiotics) which encouraged certain microorganisms in the gut. We also had prebiotics which were foods that were not digested in the gut but which work in conjunction with the probiotics.Now we are focusing our attention on the postbiotics which are the molecules produced after the prebiotics and probiotics have done their work.

ZG: 5

We are all concerned with our inner health and anxious to take the latest thing.

MedicineSue ButlerMarch 13, 2023Comment

trickle charger

trickle charger

It won’t be long before we are all familiar with the details of an EV but they are still novel at the moment — at least to me. The trickle charger is the slowest way of charging the battery in your EV.

ZG: 6

We are at the early stages of learning the jargon of EVs but it is coming.

EnvironmentSue ButlerMarch 13, 2023 Comment

price-wage spiral

price-wage spiral

For some time now the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, has in his public remarks stressed that a wage-price spiral (where wages go up and prices go up as employers pass the increases on) would keep inflation high. But now he has commented that what we need to look out for is a price-wage spiral (where prices go up and employees seek better wages to cover the increased cost in living).

ZG: 5

This is a subtlety of economics that has escaped most people who are busy trying to survive the consequences.

ZG: 4

This is possibly a Philip Lowe coinage that will not take off in the general community because it does not get at the heart of the problem.

Economics, PoliticsSue ButlerMarch 13, 2023Comment

romantasy

romantasy

Mills and Boon-style romance has always been a big seller but fantasy seems to dominate everything at the moment. So why not combine the two and have romance fantasy, otherwise known as romantasy.

ZG: 4

No doubt romantasy fills a large shelf in the bookshop but it is still a subgenre.

Arts LItSue ButlerMarch 13, 2023Comment

ACCU

ACCU

In the current discussions carbon abatement is the purchasing of Australian Carbon Credit Units to offset the production of greenhouse gases in a planned project. One ACCU represents the avoidance or removal of one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-e).

ZG: 5

There will be increasing analysis of who gets ACCUs and on what basis.

EnvironmentSue ButlerMarch 13, 2023Comment

methane bomb

methane bomb

This is the sudden release of a massive amount of methane gas, mostly as a leak from an oil or gas project. The companies responsible for the methane bombs are called super-emitters and their emissions were mapped last year in NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT).

ZG: 5

Now that NASA is mapping these, and given the huge addition to greenhouse gases that they make, we can expect more discussion about them.

EnvironmentSue ButlerMarch 13, 2023Comment

letting it rot

In June last year I blogged on the Chinese phenomenon of the lying flat movement, the increased trend with young people to opt out of the competitive rat race. Well, things have gone from bad to worse. Lying flat has progressed to letting it rot.

ZG: 2

Not many of us pay attention to popular culture movements in China, more’s the pity.

SocietySue ButlerMarch 5, 2023Comment

run philosophy

run philosophy

Some citizens of China, particularly in the middle class, are viewing their future in China with dismay. No prospects and no freedom. For one reason or another, some people are searching for ways of getting out of the country. This is evident in the surge of online discussions about how to achieve such an exit, a trend described as runxue.

ZG: 1

Another interesting item from China, entering into international English.

SocietySue ButlerMarch 5, 2023Comment

obesogen

obesogen

Obesogen is a backformation from obesogenic, a relatively recent word meaning ‘tending to cause obesity’. In the 1980s this was an adjective mostly applied to diets and unhealthy living styles. The obesogen is the name given to a chemical that promotes weight gain by increasing the activity of cells that store fat or, alternatively, inhibiting their ability to release that store as energy.

ZG: 9

This is a rather depressing view of the world we have created that is now making us obese.

MedicineSue ButlerMarch 5, 2023Comment

touch grass

touch grass

This phrase comes from the netiverse and was originally directed at people who were thought to have spent too much time online (and it was showing). They were therefore advised to go outside into the real world and touch some grass to reconnect.

ZG: 6

For those of us engaged in chat online or in the Twitterverse, this is an accepted expression.

Colloquial, InternetSue ButlerFebruary 27, 2023Comment

polycrisis

polycrisis

First we had the permacrisis which Collins Dictionary listed as a Word of the Year for 2022 and defined as ‘an extended period of instability and insecurity’. Now we have the polycrisis, a term popularised by the Columbia University historian Adam Tooze who argues that the individual shocks involved in a polycrisis interact so that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Economics, PoliticsSue ButlerFebruary 27, 2023Comment

The Great Reset

The Great Reset

This was the title of a plan launched by the World Economic Forum in 2020 in response to the COVID pandemic. It proposes that after of the great disruption to the world economy caused by the pandemic, we should not go back to capitalism and democracy as we knew it, but rethink what those systems mean and how we can reshape them to produce a greener, smarter, fairer society.

Economics, Politics, SocietySue ButlerFebruary 27, 2023Comment

buccal massage

buccal massage

A buccal massage is one in which the therapist attempts to stretch and relax the muscles of the cheek. They do this by inserting their finger into the mouth and lining it up with the thumb on the outside of the cheek. They then begin gently stretching the muscles of the cheek.

HealthSue ButlerFebruary 27, 2023Comment

blak sovereignty

blak sovereignty

The blak sovereignty movement asserts that the sovereignty of Indigenous people was never ceded to the British government and that the raising of the British flag in Sydney Cove in 1788 was an illegal act.

ZG: 9

The discussions about the Voice to Parliament will include this minority group. Lydia Thorpe has given it more prominence.

Sue ButlerFebruary 13, 2023 Comment

eco-ableism

eco-ableism

Ableism is discrimination against people with disabilities. In the case of eco-ableism such discrimination is driven by a zeal to protect the environment. Unfortunately some of the measures taken to achieve this righteous cause can create difficulties for the disabled.

ZG: 6

EnvironmentSue ButlerFebruary 13, 2023Comment

ronna and quetta

ronna and quetta

Macquarie Dictionary needs to act now since the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) met at Versailles on 18 November 2022 and introduced four new prefixes to the International System of Units. These are ronna- (10 to the power of 27) and ronto- (10 to the power of minus 27) and quetta- (10 to the power of 30) and quecto- (10 to the power of minus 30).

ZG: 2

One for the experts in the field.

ScienceSue ButlerFebruary 13, 2023Comment

smart sea mine

MilitarySue ButlerFebruary 6, 2023Comment

make bank

make bank

To make bank is to make a lot of money, more than is needed to just cover the essentials. It gives you riches to play with.

ColloquialSue ButlerFebruary 6, 2023Comment

human-generated journalism

human-generated journalism

Suddenly there are various people in the community who see their jobs being taken over by a chatbot, and among them are journalists. It seems that a number of people have taken to testing out ChatGPT, the latest piece of software in this area, and have found that it can churn out an article on what to do in Sydney or which are the best places for breakfast in Melbourne without any trouble at all.

TechnologySue ButlerFebruary 6, 2023Comment

generative AI

generative AI

This is what lies at the heart of the chatbot, a piece of software which uses auditory or textual prompts to mimic the responses of a human being, either by voice or text. The problem is that suddenly generative AI is much more successful than it has ever been before.

TechnologySue ButlerFebruary 6, 2023Comment