I have been 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 a work in progress: the preliminary list of terms as it stands is below. Soon I plan to offer 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) and a ‘lexical’ categorisation (into ‘jargon’, ‘slang, ‘catchphrase’, cliché, for instance). In January 2024 I began to add words and phrases used by combatants and commentators in connection with the continuing conflict in Israel and Palestine.

***Please do contact me with new examples, with comments and with criticism, which will be gratefully acknowledged and credited.***

Accelerationist

Administrative detention

Affrontery

Agitators

Airfix patriotism

Alpha

Alt-centre

Alt-right

Anglosphere

Annexationist

Antifa

Anti-growth coalition

Anywheres

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

Cognitive warfare

Collateral

Collective narcissism

Compassion deficit

Concierge class

Consequence culture

Copaganda

Cosmopolitan

Corbynista

Corporatocracy

Coup

Courtier journalists

Crash out

Cronyvirus

Crowdstrike

Crybaby

Cuck

Culturalism

Cultural marxist

Culture warrior

Dark forces

Datagrab

Dead cat strategy

Death cult

Deepfake

Deep state

Defund

DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)

Delegitimizer

Demilitarization

Democide

Deplorables

DEXEU

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

Get it done

Getting the barnacles off the boat

Gimmegrant

Girly swot

Global Britain

Globalist

GNU

Grievance studies

Guardianista

Hard Brexit

Hate goblin

Hatriot

Headroom

Headwinds

Henry VIII powers

Heterophobic

High-vis nazis

Hobbit

Homonationalism

Hopepunk

Hose it down

Hybrid threats

Identitarian

Idiocracy

Illuminati

Incel

Indicative vote

Individual-1

Intifada

Jambon jaunes

Jexodus

Kayfabe

Keirmacht

Kicking the can down the road

King baby

Kipper

Kipper moment

Kleptofascist

Kompromat

Lamestream media

Lawfare

Leave means leave

Leftwaffe

Lentil-weaving

Lethal aid

Level up

Lexit

Libertarian

Libtard

Life lost/Lives lost

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

Masculinist

Matrixed

Maybot

Meaningful vote

Mediaeval methods

Melt

Meninist

Metropolitan

Microaggression

Militarised nostalgia

Milkshake(d)

Mindless compassion

Momtifa

Moral emptiness

Moral grandstanding

MSM

Nakba 2

Nanny state

Nativist

Necrocapitalism

Neglexit

Neon nazis

Neurotic elite

Neutrollization

No-deal

No-platforming

Normie

Nudgism

Offence archaeology

Operation Red Meat

Operation Save Big Dog

Optics

Ordeals

Ostentatious meekness

Oven-ready

Overly purist

Overton window

Palaeoconservative

Partygate

Pearl-clutching

Penumbral jobs

People’s vote

Performative allyship

Performative cruelty

Pile on

Political correctness

Post-liberal

Postmodern

Posttext

Post-truth

Poverty porn

Prebunking

Price cap

Project Fear

Prozac leadership

Purity of arms

Pushback

Put/stick that on the side of a bus

QAnon

Quitlings

Rabble

Race to the bottom

Rage farming

Rampdown

Red lines

Red pill

Red wall

Regrexit

Rejoiner

Re-leaver

Remainiacs

Remain plus

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

#ScumMedia

Sealioning

Sensitivity reader

Shadow blocking

Shallowfake

Shill

Shire

Shitposting

Shitshow

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

Stenographer

Sunlit uplands

Svengali

SWERF

Taking back control

Tankie

Targeted individual

Technofeudalism

Tender-age shelter

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

Transition period

Trexit

Triangulation

Tribal(ism)

Trickle-down pathology

Troll farm/factory

Truth-squadding

Tufton Street

Tu quoque

Unicorns

Unpopulism

Unspin

Urban

Values voter

Vassal state

Verbal incontinence

Vigilante journalism

Village idiot

Virtue-signalling

Voluntary emigration

Walk back

War cabinet

Watch-list

Weaponised*

Wedge issues

West(s)plaining

Whataboutery

White supremacist

Will of the people

Wokerati

Wokescold

Woketard

Woke warriors

Woke-washing

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:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/05/brexitspeak-brexit-vocabulary-growing-too-fast-public-keep-up

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 :

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/culture/the-new-lexicon-of-hate-a-disturbing-a-z-of-alt-right-language-1-4894833

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’:

The role of information literacy in the fight against 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:

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/11/28/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:

Ladybird Libertarians: Dan Hannan, Paddington and the pernicious impact of 1970s children’s literature on Brexit thinking

In January 2019 James Tapper contributed this very perceptive assessment of Brexit metaphors:

The Many Metaphors of Brexit

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:

‘Swamping’, ‘Cockroaches’, ‘Invasion’: How Language Shapes our View of Migration

In 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:

Translations from the Wokish