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.
Initially this was a term used in economics to describe the situation in which the failure of one aspect of the economy leads to other failures which collectively bring about an economic catastrophe.
ZG: 3
Our current economic state has brought this bit of economic jargon to the surface.
Read MoreYou can find online support groups for people suffering from various illnesses. This has been of great benefit to the sufferers, but they now have to watch out for cuckoos in the nest, people who are perfectly well but fake their symptoms so as to garner support for themselves. If they are good online performers they can attract quite a following and that brings with it certain benefits.
ZG: 4
This one may gain in frequency as people become more wary.
Read MoreThis is the use of AI to create interactive digital versions of a person who has departed this life. A chatbot can bring the dead person to a virtual life as an avatar which can communicate with family and friends, using the dead person’s voice.
Read MoreThis is also called sobriety memoir. I can see no real difference between the two although the recovery memoir perhaps focuses on the the experience of the writer who has personally travelled the road from addiction to recovery, whereas the sobriety memoir gives more weight to the joys and discoveries that come from being sober.
ZG: 4
This is perhaps a subgenre of quit lit.
Read MoreFirst we had the influencers, the people who become leaders on social media and who amass followers who take on board recommendations to buy particular products. De-influencing is giving recommendations on what NOT to buy.
ZG: 6
This is a term that is strong in the social media world that influencers and de-influencers inhabit.
Read MoreThis is an urban planning concept in which cities are so arranged that everyone can get to the places they need to go to — shops, schools, healthcare, parks and leisure activities — on foot or by bicycle inside 15 minutes.
ZG: 6
This would have remained the jargon of the town planners if it had not been for the conspiracy theorists.
Read MoreThis is usually abbreviated to CFT. It is a treatment that starts with physiotherapy — it was devised by the Professor of Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy at Curtin University, Dr Peter O’Sullivan.
ZG: 7
For the many people suffering from lower back pain this is good news. Undoubtedly, like many medical terms it will move from the long form to the abbreviated CFT very rapidly.
Read MoreThis is a form of solar energy that has, until recently, been overlooked in Australia. Basically the sun’s rays are captured in mirrors concentrated on a radiation collector and heat up a heat-bearing medium, usually thermal oil. The heat energy is then stored until required at which point a turbine transforms it into electricity.
ZG: 4
This is not a huge feature of our world yet but it could become more prominent in the future.
Read MoreThis one has been around for a while but I have just caught up with it, thanks to Narelda Jacobs, the presenter of 10 Network News. We were discussing some of the words that Macquarie Dictionary is considering for inclusion in the dictionary — you can see them posted as April words on their website — when Narelda commented that she had a coffee name. It was Nelly.
ZG: 7
Coffee names are common, I find. And, to my surprise, I find that some people with perfectly short acceptable names like to try out something different, just for fun.
Read MoreDo you have rizz? If you have to think about it then you probably don’t. Rizz is the ability to attract someone of the opposite sex by being able to flatter, tease, produce attention-engaging word play. Rizz is not exactly smooth-talking. It is more like a verbal display that pulls the girl in.
ZG: 7
This one seems to have gained currency very quickly among the Twitterers and in real life.
Read MoreSchool refusal (sometimes called school avoidance) is not the same as truancy which is wagging school to find more entertaining ways of spending the day. This is a child refusing to go to school because of the deep anxiety they are feeling in relation to school.
ZG: 6
This has been a continuing problem post-COVID and one not easily solved.
Read MoreIn all the discussions about chatbots recently people jumped lightly over the requirement to build a set of texts and instructions that the chatbot can use to decide what to write and how to write, content and style. This is now referred to as prompt engineering, that is, designing what will prompt the chatbot to produce good output.
ZG: 4
The flurry of excitement aroused by chatbots seems to have died down, but we can probably expect to hear more about prompt engineering as a career for the future.
Read MoreThis is a wedding in the metaverse. The couple sit down, each with their laptop, as their avatars enter the wedding venue and talk to the marriage celebrant. They exchange NFT rings and receive an NVT certificate. The certificate is not legally binding.
ZG: 3
This is very much a novelty embraced by a small minority.
Read MoreIt began with chick lit in the late 1980s, the jokey name for the romantic fiction that women liked to read. Now we have quit lit which is the genre of writing that focuses on the sober-serious (blogged here last year) and the techniques and practices that allowed them to become so.
ZG: 5
The fashions in writing genres do not touch us all, particularly when it involves doing without alcohol.
Read MoreThere is a mode of improvisation in which you agree with what one player has offered and then expand on it. ‘My hair is on fire’ says one actor. Yes, and it’s catching onto your clothes’ says another, building up the scene and giving the first actor something to work with.
ZG: 5
The leap from the theatre to business contexts has given this expression greater currency.
Read MoreThere are many ways in which parents are deemed to have failed their children and sown the seeds of continuing hurt, feelings of worthlessness and lifelong anger. The latest one springs from the way in which we create passwords online, using the names of our dogs, our cats, and … our children.
ZG: 7
Read MoreThe Perth Mint has been in the headlines, accused of money laundering and of gold doping. The second charge needed explanation.
ZG: 3
This is jargon and not something the average person would encounter but it is fascinating.
Read MoreBeach spreading refers to the habit of claiming territory on a beach, usually by putting up a large cabana with accessories for the day out such as tables and eskis that take up more space than the average family would have taken in the days when we just spread out some towels.
ZG: 8
There seems to be a Down-with-the cabanas! rebellion stirring among beachgoers in Sydney.
Read MoreA room that is a total mess — clothes everywhere, bed unmade, last night’s dinner still on the floor — is an indicator that the inhabitant of the room is suffering severe depression.
ZG: 6
Many more people than usual experienced a depression room during COVID so the awareness of the depression room and how to climb out of it is greater.
Read More
