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.
The latest of the various influencers to hold sway on TikTok is the cleanfluencer. You can watch one in action in their own home, demonstrating the best way to declutter, to organise, to clean. They can achieve a level of cleanliness that most of us cannot aspire to.
ZG: 6
While cleanfluencers can have big and enthusiastic followings, it still only amounts to a small group of mostly women obsessed with cleanliness.
Read MoreWhile reggae has been popular in Australia since the early1980s, it has taken a new direction in more recent times to produce the genre desert reggae. Indigenous singers of Central Australia have found that this is an appropriate vehicle for their voices, their culture.
ZG: 6
For the reggae lovers this is something different.
Read MoreThink wholesome, natural, effortless beauty with no artifice or ostentation and you have the clean girl aesthetic. Of course this can only be achieved with a certain amount of help from cosmetics.
ZG: 7
With the younger generation this term has high frequency. The rest of us are learning to recognise and understand it.
Read MoreThis is a new (well — comparatively new) genre of music in which contemporary popular music is arranged in a medieval style.
Read MoreWe don’t often take an interest in new Covid variants these days but XEC has registered, at least with the medical fraternity. It is a hybrid of two previously existing Omicron sub variants, one of which is a FLiRT and one of which is a FLuQe (see previous new words).
ZG: 4
We have mostly ceased to care about new variants and strange names bestowed on them by the WHO.
Read MoreEssentially this means something that has both biological and non-biological components. There are two standout areas in which biohybrid materials are advancing — medicine and robotics.
Read MoreBodybuilders compete on the strength and beauty of their bodies. Someone who outclasses everyone else is a MOG (Man Of God).
ZG: 6
An obscure piece of jargon from the world of bodybuilding which has entered federal parliament.
Read MoreThe medical staff in Blackpool, UK, had a name for what they saw as the result not just of an individual’s poor health but of a social condition linked to poverty and deprivation that meant that the health of the community suffered. It was shit life syndrome.
Read MoreAlternative names are crappification or platform decay. The process is that a new service or product pops up online aiming to please and attract as many users as possible but ultimately disregards both the users and the business customers in favour of maximising profit.
ZG: 5
I think this is a term that is making its way into the mainstream, since most people sadly recognise the process.
Read MoreThis comes from a machinima web series in which there is a war between the skibidi toilets (toilets with a human head emerging from them) and humanoid figures with cameras, speakers and televisions for heads. Yes, it’s weird. But popular.
Read MoreTikTok video creator Jools Lebron has managed to give the word demure a new twist — and has persuaded her followers to send in examples of what is demure these days. Jools says that it now means that you are mindful, cutesy, not doing too much.
Read MoreDupe in the sense of ‘duplicate’ moved from the film industry to the gaming industry and now to cosmetics.
ZG: 8
A very common term for something that is very popular.
Read MoreThis is another manifestation of the changes which AI is making in once familiar patterns of work. It is possible now, using AI, to create a synthetic voice for commercial use.
ZG: 5
AI and all it can do for us, both good and bad, is a constant topic at the moment.
Read MoreWe know about the bath butler and the IT or technology butler that hotels have offered in the past, but now we have the sleep butler or sleep concierge who will guide you through the services and treatments available in a hotel that focuses on giving the guests a good night’s sleep.
ZG: 4
There is a huge preoccupation in the community with sleep - and the lack of it.
Read MoreDemand avoidance is something we can all do when we are feeling a bit overwhelmed, a bit tired, a bit tired and emotional. Pathological demand avoidance describes the situation where the level of avoidance is so high that it disrupts normal life.
ZG: 4
A bit of medical jargon that is current in a subsection of the community.
Read MoreThis is a mild putdown. It implies that someone is failing at what they are attempting to do (as in trying to make an impression on social media) and they should instead go and get a job at MacDonalds because that is all that they are good for.
ZG: 4
Obviously a phrase which hasn't crossed the generation gap, but Senator Layman may have helped it along.
Read MoreThis is the process of recording your speech so that it can be recreated by AI to speak whatever you require it to say. This is of benefit to people who know that they are going to lose their voice as, for example, a result of a tracheotomy.
ZG: 3
This is still part of the jargon of speech pathology although its frequency may now increase.
Read MoreThis is the name for a new class of synthetic opioids appearing as a white powder, a crystalline solid or a brownish powder. It can be sold as tablets.
ZG: 6
I would give this a high rating except that people seem to be avoiding the name nitzene in favour of the more general synthetic opioid.
Read MoreThe official name for smart insulin is glucose-responsive insulin (GRI) but I think that, speaking lexicographically, smart insulin is the name that will be popular in common speak.
ZG: 5
Of trememdous interest to the diabetics among us but since it doesn't actually exist in the market yet it is not on everyone's lips.
Read MoreIt’s odd isn’t it that such a very retro activity — fattening the pig and then slaughtering it for some festive occasion — should be the metaphor for modern-day scamming.
ZG: 7
This is a relatively common and extremely harmful form of scamming.
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