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.
Let’s start with the alpha male — charming, with access to power and its associated status, physically impressive, dominating and quite possibly intimidating. The alpha male has been contrasted with the beta male — quiet, lacking physical presence, submissive. But now we have the sigma type which can be male or female.
ZG: 8
This is the trendy word to use to express admiration. As far as the stereotypes go, being alpha was exhausting whereas being sigma is just doing your own thing.
Read MoreBoth state and federal governments engage Indigenous businesses to undertake various projects for which government funding is supplied. It seems that some non-Indigenous businesses have eyed off this funding and decided to become Indigenous to get it.
ZG: 4
In the niche area of government funding for Indigenous projects this term is big at the moment.
Read MoreThe rage room is still a relatively recent discovery but this is for a general catharsis and is for everyone. You can feel a lot better after you have thrown crockery at the wall and smashed up a few things, it seems. It’s fun to let go. The rage ritual is specifically for women and part of wellness programs that have linked up to psychotherapy.
ZG: 4
Yet another trend in venting frustration to achieve that elusive wellness.
Read MoreIn academia these days the worth of an academic is measured by the number of papers he or she can publish. There are businesses, paper mills, which cater to this demand by publishing poor quality papers or even fraudulent papers that can be passed off as genuine research.
ZG: 3
In the academic world paper mills are no doubt discussed at length but outside academia the term would not have much currency.
Read MoreThis is a term coined by the US advocacy group Strong Towns which is essentially interested in urban planning that reduces car dependency and favours urban design concepts that benefit people in their daily lives, such as walkability, mixed-use zoning and infill development. The word is a blend of street and road.
ZG: 3
This is a word forced upon us by those who want to campaign for change in urban design. I'm not sure that it has been generally accepted.
Read MoreThe victory of Arisa Trew in winning gold in the Olympics skateboarding will mean that we will all learn a few more terms of skateboarding jargon. The first one that struck me was the commentator’s use of NBD. Apparently Arisa did a few of them.
ZG: 7
Still a skateboarding jargon term but we have heard it a lot during the Olympics.
Read MoreThis is a new genre, similar to fantasy but with explicit sex scenes involving human and fairy characters. It has required a new classification of literature.
ZG: 6
In the book world fairy porn is the flavour of the month.
Read MoreEvery aspiring American president wants to hook up to popular culture by way of music as a way of gathering votes. In the case of Kamala Harris the hook has been offered to her by Charli XCX, a British singer/songwriter.
ZG: 3
For us this is of passing interest as the American election caravan rolls on.
Read MoreIn this time of cottonwool parenting educators are realising that children are missing out on opportunities to develop both physically and mentally. And so we have the concept of risky play in which children learn their physical capabilities as well as the ability to adapt, to measure risk, to cope with what life will throw at them.
ZG: 7
This is definite the in-thing among the educators and parenting advisors at the moment.
Read MoreThere have been various carbon capture schemes proposed. In DAC (direct air capture) the air is sucked into a system which filters out carbon dioxide which is then stored, usually in deep geological formations, or else reused in other processes.
ZG: 5
Yet another way of reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Who knows if it will work or not!
Read MoreThe solar garden allows people who, for a variety of reasons, are not able to have the benefit of rooftop solar panels, to buy a portion of a solar panel array and profit from the energy produced and fed to the grid.
ZG: 5
Our first solar garden is just being launched so this does not have high frequency yet, but the enthusiasm of renters may well make it big.
Read MoreThis is a music genre which dates back to the 1990s in the Southern US but which has, in the last couple of years, become mainstream at least for the Twitter generation.
ZG: 8
High frequency in a particular section of the community.
Read MoreThis is the work of maintaining the social connections within an extended family. It has in the past been done largely by women.
ZG: 7
This was an item of academic jargon until it hit the mainstream in social media.
Read MoreWay back in 2018 I spoke about cloud brightening, the process of adding salt crystals to clouds which would then better reflect the rays of the sun, reduce the amount of sunlight falling on the earth, and ameliorate the effects of climate warming.
ZG: 4
If this works the term could get much higher frequency.
Read MoreThese are profits earned above and beyond the expectations that a company would have in normal conditions. They are a form of windfall profits but somehow that name conjures up a vision of apples strewn across the lawn under the tree after a high wind — something unexpected but pleasant.
ZG: 4
This is a piece of economics jargon which probably does not have high frequency although the lived experience is something that troubles us all.
Read MoreA research team at Sydney University , led by Dr Sandro Ataido (pictured above), has now devised a new method of editing genes where the deletion and insertion is done as one process.
ZG: 3
This is low frequency at the moment but is set to become as well known as CRISPR.
Read MoreHave you had cold-like symptoms lately? It could be influenza, RSV, mycoplasma pneumonia (otherwise known as micro pneumonia), walking pneumonia, whooping cough or Covid. Or it could just be a cold. If it is Covid then it could be FLiRT but is more likely now to be FLuQE.
ZG: 5
We are getting very good at picking up the names of the variants and subvariants of Covid.
Read MoreThis is a chatbot that imitates a person who is dead, usually at the request of someone who loves them and doesn’t want to let them go. It follows the path of creating customised chatbots.
ZG: 3
Not everyone wants to deal with the death of a loved one in this way.
Read MoreThe exciting news is that the first state championship in Australia will be held near Brisbane this year. Why do I hesitate to say that hobby horsing is a sport? It does, after all, involve a fair degree of athleticism to jump hurdles in a horsy way and perform the fancy manoeuvres of dressage and to go on hobby horse endurance rides, but that is just half of it.
ZG: 4
As the enthusiasm for hobby horsing catches on, the frequecy of the jargon will rise.
Read MoreWe should all take one after a meal is the latest recommendation. It seems that remaining sedentary is the worst thing we can do if we suffer from bloating, irritable bowel, and all the other discomfits of a cranky gut.
ZG: 4
it is one of the latest trends in the American monetising of health and wellbeing that has reached out shores.
Read More
