In 2018 I began collecting new and controversial language generated by the rise of conservative populism in the US and the UK, by pro- and anti-Trump sentiment in the US and by the divisions resulting from the UK’s Brexit vote. This is still a work in progress: the list of terms as it stands is below. An ideal glossary or lexicon would include detailed definitions and comments (for example, the second word in the list is my own invention, intended to describe a statement, act or policy showing effrontery, and itself a deliberate affront to a section of the population), dates of first use where traceable and a ‘lexical’ categorisation (into ‘jargon’, ‘slang, ‘catchphrase’, cliché, for instance). This more exhaustive treatment is beyond my resources for now, but googling the term in question will throw up examples which may be accompanied by dates and useful commentary.
In January 2024 I began to add words and phrases used by combatants and commentators in connection with the continuing ‘conflict’ in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. Exactly one year later the ‘coup’, as some described it, enacted in the USA by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, featured new examples of distortion, euphemism and the language of rancour.
***Please do contact me with new examples, with comments and with criticism, which will be gratefully acknowledged and credited.***
Accelerationist
Accommodationist
Administrative detention
Affrontery
Agitators
Airfix patriotism
Alpha
Alt-centre
Alt-right
Amalek
Anglosphere
Annexationist
Anticipatory compliance/obedience
Antifa
Anti-growth coalition
Anywheres
Armed intervention
Asset
Astroturfing
Asylum shopping
Attitudinarian
Australia-style deal
Autohagiography
Backstop
Bad actors
Based
Bed-wetting
Beta
Beyond satire
Bike-shedding
Birtherism
Bitterites
Black hole
Black ops
The Blob
Blowback
Body count
Bot
Both-sidesism
Breadcrumbs
Brectum
Bregressive
Bregret(s)
Bremain
Brengland
Brexiles
Brexit dividend
Brexiteer
Brexit means Brexit
Brexit ultras
Brexmageddon
Brexmas
Brexodus
Brexomertà
Brexpats
Brexshit
Brextension
BRINO
Britain deserves better
Bubble
Butthurt
Cakeism
Calling out
Canada plus plus plus
Cancel culture
Candour deficit
Canzuk union
Casino capitalism
Centrist dad
Cherry-picking
Children of light
Chilling
Chumocracy
Churnalism
Civics
Civilian Security teams
Civility
Classist
Cliff-edge
Clown car
Clown country/state
Clusterbùrach
Coerced migration
Coercive diplomacy
Cognitive elite
Cognitive warfare
Collateral
Collective narcissism
Combative
Combat propaganda operative
Compassion deficit
Competing narratives
Concern(ed)
Concierge class
Confected fury
Conflicting accounts
Consequence culture
Copaganda
Cosmopolitan
Corbynista
Corporatocracy
Coup
Coup Klux Klan
Courtier journalists
Crash out
Cronyvirus
Crowdstrike
Crybaby
Cuck
Culturalism
Cultural marxist
Culturally coherent
Culture warrior
Dark forces
Datagrab
Dead cat strategy
Death cult
Deepfake
Deep state
Defund
DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)
DEI items
Delegitimizer
Demilitarization
Democide
Deplorables
Detained
DEXEU
‘Dies’
Disappeared
Disaster capitalism
Discourse engineering
Disinformation
Divorce bill
Do-gooder
Dogpile
Dog-whistle
Doom loop
Double down
Doxxing
Drain the swamp
DREAMer
Dumpster fire
Echo-chamber
Economic nationalism
Economically inactive
Educide
Elite
Empty chair
Enablers
Enemies of the people
English exceptionalism
Ergo decedo
Establishment
Ethnics
Ethnonationalist
Ethno-state
Exchange of fire
Expert
Factuality
Fake news
Fall off a cliff
False flag operation
Fash-adjacent
Fashy
Fauxlanthropist
FBPE
Feminazi
Fifth column
Finger-sniffer
Firehosing
Flextension
Flooding the zone
FluTruxKlan
Fractionate
Fratriarchy
Frictionless
Frit
Frontlash
FUD
Gammon
Gammonista
Gangster state
Genocide Joe
Get it done
Getting the barnacles off the boat
Gimmegrant
Girly swot
Global Britain
Globalist
GNU
Grievance studies
Grumpy retiree
Guardianista
Hard Brexit
Hate goblin
Hatriot
Headroom
Headwinds
Henry VIII powers
Heterophobic
High-vis nazis
Hobbit
Homonationalism
Hopepunk
Hose it down
Humanitarian bridge
Hybrid threats
Identitarian
Idiocracy
Illuminati
Incel
Indications
Indicative vote
Individual-1
Intentional explosion
Intifada
Irrational exuberance
Jambon jaunes
Jexodus
Kayfabe
Keirmacht
Kicking the can down the road
Kindercoup
King baby
Kipper
Kipper moment
Kleptofascist
Kompromat
Lamestream media
Lawfare
Leave means leave
Leftwaffe
Legitimate concerns
Lentil-weaving
Lesser mortals
Lethal aid
Level up
Lexit
Libertarian
Libtard
Loss of life
“Lost their lives”
Limited ground operation
Limp-wristed
Little Englander
Lolcow
Londongrad
Londonistan
Long Corbyn
Long coup
Low-energy
Luftwaffle
MAGA
Magic Grandpa
Magic money tree
Majoritarian
Man-baby
Mangina
Manosphere
Manufactured consent
Masculinist
Matrixed
Maybot
Meaningful vote
Meat wave(s)
Mediaeval methods
Melt
Meninist
Mercurial
Metropolitan
Microaggression
Militarised nostalgia
Milkshake(d)
Mindless compassion
Ming vase
Mischievous
Mishap
Missing
Momtifa
Moral clarity
Moral emptiness
Moral grandstanding
MSM
Nakba 2
Nanny state
Nativist
Necrocapitalism
Necropolitics
Neglexit
Neon nazis
Nerd Reich
Neurotic elite
Neutrollization
No-deal
No-platforming
Normie
Nudgism
Obey in advance
Offence archaeology
Operational matter
Operation Red Meat
Operation Save Big Dog
Optics
Ordeals
Ostentatious meekness
Oven-ready
Over-briefed
Overly purist
Overton window
Palaeoconservative
Partygate
Pearl-clutching
Penumbral jobs
People’s vote
Performative allyship
Performative cruelty
Pile on
Political correctness
Political gospel
Polycrisis
Post apocalyptic warlord
Post-liberal
Postmodern
Posttext
Post-truth
Poverty porn
Prebunking
Pre-emptive strike
Price cap
Project Fear
Protesters
Prozac leadership
Pugnacious
Punchy
Purity of arms
Push (BBC euphemism for armed incursion, invasion)
Pushback
Put/stick that on the side of a bus
QAnon
Quitlings
Rabble
Race to the bottom
Rage bait
Rage farming
Rampdown
Red lines
Red pill
Red wall
Regrexit
Rejoiner
Re-leaver
Relocate
Remainiacs
Remain plus
Remigration
Remoanathon
Remoaner
Remove kebab
Replacement theory
Reply deboosting
Reputation laundering
Resistance
Restorative nostalgia
Retconning
Revoker
Roll back
Rootless
Row back
Russian asset
Saboteur
Sadopopulism
Safe space
Scumbag centrism
#ScumMedia
Sealioning
Sensitivity reader
Shadow blocking
Shallowfake
Shill
Shire
Shitposting
Shitshow
Showboating
Shylock
Sick-note culture
Singapore-on-Thames
SJW social justice warrior
Skilling up
Skunked term**
Slave populace
Sleaze
Snowflake
Sobersides
Sockpuppet
Soft border
Soft Brexit
Somewheres
Sovereignty
Soy-boy
Spartan phalanx
Spiv
Star Chamber
Starmergeddon
Stenographer
Sticking point
Strategic self-abasement
Stunning proposal
Sunlit uplands
Supermajority
Surgical strike
Svengali
SWERF
TACO
Taking back control
Tankie
Targeted individual
Targeted strike
Technofeudalism
Tender-age shelter
“Tensions rise”
Terf
Terminability
The other team
Throw under the bus
#tfg, ‘the former guy’
Tick tock
Tigger
Tofu-eating
Tone deaf
Tone policing
Tory scum
Toxic positivity
Transactional
Transition period
Trexit
Triangulation
Tribal(ism)
Trickle-down pathology
Troll farm/factory
Trumpcession
Trump slump
Truth-squadding
Tufton Street
Tu quoque
Two-tier policing
Unconfirmed reports
Unicorns
Unpopulism
Unrest
Unspin
Urban
Values voter
Vassal state
Verbal incontinence
Vice-signalling
Vigilante journalism
Village idiot
Virtue-signalling
Voluntary emigration
Walk back
War cabinet
War of extraordinary civilian casualties (Guardian euphemism for genocide)
Watch-list
Weaponised*
Wedge issues
West(s)plaining
Whataboutery
White supremacist
Will of the people
With a heavy heart
Woke
Woke mind virus
Wokerati
Wokescold
Woketard
Woke warriors
Woke-washing
Womp womp
Workington man
Yoghurt-knitting
Zealot
I’m grateful especially to the many contacts on Twitter who have already contributed to this modest project, particularly Duncan Reynolds @duncanr2, and will credit them all by name/handle when a final version is published.
I’m also very grateful to Rob Booth and the Guardian who, in October 2019, wrote about the glossary and its topicality in increasingly conflicted times:
And to Carlos Fresneda for this piece in El Mundo:
https://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2019/10/17/5da765cf21efa0eb618b4680.html
Artist Simon Roberts has kindly shared with me his artworks based on his own lexicon of Brexit language:
Between the Acts, Part II – The Brexit Lexicon
For readers, students, and researchers interested in or working with this topic here are some of the other articles and sources to consider…
In February 2017 The New European published its own very useful lexicon, from which I have drawn, gratefully but without permission :
And the BBC listed many of the technical – and some less technical – terms associated with Brexit earlier this year:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43470987
Last year Karl McDonald discussed the language used by Labour party leftists in the i newspaper:
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/slugs-melts-inside-language-culture-corbynite-left/
And here’s Helen Lewis in the New Statesman on incivility in the UK:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/08/how-britain-political-conversation-turned-toxic
And Philip Seargeant on ‘fake news’:
In November 2018 The Guardian published a useful ‘jargon-buster’ guide to the terms being used at this late stage of (or impasse in, if you prefer) UK-EU negotiations:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/19/brexit-phrasebook-a-guide-to-the-talks-key-terms
Here Renee DiResta describes the ongoing ‘Information War(s)’ of which the manipulation of language is one component:
The Digital Maginot Line
I have only just come across this perceptive essay from 2017, by Otto English on his Pinprick blog, in which he coins the terms Ladybird libertarian and Ronseal academic:
In January 2019 James Tapper contributed this very perceptive assessment of Brexit metaphors:
And in March, more from the BBC:
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190314-how-brexit-changed-the-english-language
In July 2019 the FT ran an interesting review of Boris Johnson’s press articles as precursors of ‘fake news’:
https://www.ft.com/content/ad141e8a-976d-11e9-9573-ee5cbb98ed36
And in October of the same year David Shariatmadari and Veronika Koller considered Brexit metaphors:
Brexit and the weaponisation of metaphor
*The progressive weaponisation of language is discussed here by Justin Strawhand:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/weaponized-language_b_1380788
In an update from November 2023 New Lines Magazine addressed the distorted, conflicted language employed in describing Israel’s response to Hamas:
https://newlinesmag.com/argument/language-is-a-powerful-weapon-in-the-israel-palestine-conflict/
**’Skunked terms’ are words or expressions undergoing a controversial change in meaning. Examples are ‘liberal’ and ‘libertarian’ which have transitioned from referring to leftist, progressive or centrist positions to denote neo-conservative or alt-right affiliations. Nearly two years on from my original post the useful designation ‘anglosphere’, describing English-speaking nations with shared cultural features, has been co-opted by far-right nativists in the UK to promote a supremacist ideology.
As a further footnote, this from Twitter in November 2020 (thanks to Alan Pulverness), a reminder that weaponised words may also be frivolous – even puerile:
Looking back to 2016, a prescient tweet by Gary Kasparov:
At the end of 2022 my friend and collaborator Dan Clayton wrote, for Byline Times, about the latest iteration of toxic terminology and rhetoric: the demonising of refugees and migrants:
In early 2024 I belatedly learned of an interestingly tendentious and sententious glossary purporting to list and explain the words used by the ‘woke’. This, compiled by Dr James Lindsay, critically examines key terms relating to gender studies, critical race theory and identity politics in the US context:
And in May 2024 Amanda Montell described in The Guardian how politicians and influencers deploy cliches in online discourses:
In June 2025 the Centre for Media Monitoring published its analysis of the BBC‘s coverage of the devastation of Gaza:
Later in June, as Israel and Iran exchanged fire, Assal Rad noted the double standards employed in reports of the conflict:
The language of manufacturing consent:
: Preemptive strikes
: Escalation
: Warns
: Threatens
: Targets
: Attacks
: Government
: Regime
: Right to self-defense
: Condemnations
: Sophisticated military (has nukes)
: Nuclear threat (has no nukes)
tony thorne 
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Hello mate nice poost
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Thanks!
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