#CORONASPEAK – the language of Covid-19 goes viral – 2

The second part of my Lockdown Lexicon, Covidictionary, Glossary of Coronacoinages

COVID-19 Updates - Alpha-1 Foundation

In trying to make sense of our new circumstances, under lockdown, in social isolation or distancing, we must come to terms with an array of new language, some of it unfamiliar and difficult to process, some pre-existing but deployed in new ways. Many of us, though, are empowering ourselves by inventing and exchanging our own expressions, some of which have already escaped the confines of the family or the virtual work group.

I listed in my last post some of the scientific and technical terms which have moved into everyday usage. Those can seem intimidating – for good reasons – but most have been readily understood.

This time I’m looking at the language that homeworkers and locked-down friends, families and individuals, in some cases journalists too, in English-speaking areas have coined to fill the gaps in the official narratives and to find ways of expressing concepts that simply didn’t apply a few weeks ago. This includes nicknames, jargon, slang, abbreviations, puns and recent catchphrases and clichés.

I have tried to categorise the terms: again, some have become familiar by now while others may remain mysterious to many. For the moment this is a work in progress – an ongoing project to track the language of the crisis and to operate a linguistic ‘rapid response’ in gathering data.

Although it is a first draft, I thought it important to publish the list now (you can find more on many of these expressions, which won’t appear in standard dictionaries for some time, simply by Googling) and to appeal for anyone reading it to send me new terms, either to this website or to Twitter @tonythorne007. As the list grows I will thank and credit as many contributors as I can.

These are the new expressions, in no particular order, but divided roughly according to theme or topic (there are some terms – isocosm, meaning the contracted reality we are now living in – is one, which could fit under several headings)…

Coronavirus: Supermarkets plan to cut services to stay open during ...

  1. Describing the new realities

Anthropause – the hiatus in human activities occasioned by the pandemic, seen in terms of its effects on nature, wildlife, etc.

Coronaverse (Guardian) – the now prevailing socio-economic order

Quarantimes – a hashtag or label for the prevailing circumstances under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic

#Coronatimes – a hashtag on Instagram and Twitter: the period we are presently living through

BCV, B.C – (the period) before corona(virus)

Common invisible enemy (NATO) – virus as a sinister threat to the collectivity

Coronapocalypse – the effects of coronavirus framed as catastrophe

Radical uncertainty – doubts and uncertainty around decision-making in an unknowable future (title of a work by John Kay and Mervyn King)

Viral anxiety (New Statesman) – fear and uncertainty, sometimes excessive, due to the COVID-19 outbreak and its ramifications

Disinformation pandemic – the spread of fake news and false theories

Infodemic – the accelerated spread of disinformation

The coronopticon (Economist) – the notion of a national or global system of surveillance and control

Biosurveillance – monitoring the occurrence of contagion in a population

Security hygiene – methods intended to counter online scams, frauds and misuse of AI

Digital vigilance – raising awareness of and guarding against cybercrime and fraudulent claims

#coronanoia – paranoia induced by conditions obtaining in the pandemic

Caremongering (Canada and India) – organised acts of kindness and propagation of good news by volunteers

Armchair virologist – an unqualified self-styled expert on viral spread dispensing explanations and/or advice

Coronasplaining – purporting to explain aspects of the coronavirus-induced crisis, particularly to those who understand it better than the explainer

Coronaspiracy theories – conspiracy theories circulating as a result of the spread of COVID-19

Pancession – a pandemic-associated widespread economic recession

Disaster capitalism – profiting, profiteering and exploitation in conditions of local and global crisis

Disaster altruism – acts of benevolence in response to local and global crisis

#lockdowners – individuals coping with life in conditions of isolation

Wobble room – a safe physical space designated for the use of those experiencing psychological distress

Corona warriors (India) – frontline professionals, also known as covid-19 warriors, working to control the pandemic

Covexit – an exit strategy permitting relaxing of confinement and economic recovery following coronavirus-related restrictions

Second wave – a resurgence in the number of cases of infection following the relaxation of initial containment procedures

Corona crunch – the dramatic impact of the pandemic on e.g university income, investment returns

Post-normal science – instances where crucial socioeconomic decisions must be made despite uncertainty as to the relevant scientific facts

Contagion chivalry (New York Times) – an act or acts of selflessness during confinement

Coronacoaster – successive feelings of elation and despair experienced under conditions of confinement

#coronaclickbait – marketing messages or invitations to read information playing on COVID-19 fears

Loxit – the process of exiting from lockdown impositions

Loxino – lockdown exit in name only: an only apparent or partial transition

Circuit-breakers – halting an exit from lockdown by closing re-opened venues or ceasing re-started activities

#unlockdown – the process of relaxing or ending social and physical restrictions, or the period following their ending; equivalent to, or translation of the French déconfinement

Coronaphobia (Daily Mail) – fear experienced by the public at the prospect of having to return to work, send children back to school, use public transport, etc.

Bubble – a social group, a small number of family members and/or friends or teachers and students permitted to interact while wider social constraints continue, also a geographical zone within which travel and trade is permitted

Coronawashing – corporations or individuals taking advantage of the pandemic to promote their altruism, philanthropy and achievements

Cleanliness theatre/er – conspicuously thorough cleaning of hotels, restaurants, etc., intended to reassure customers: if in hospitals and public places it is known as hygiene theatre/er

Vaccine nationalism – competing to discover and produce an antivirus vaccine (benefitting from prestige thus acquired) and potentially then restricting availability to one’s own citizens

Air bridge – a travel corridor between two or more states allowing passage without quarantine. In July 2020, amid confusion, official messaging began to substitute the phrase ‘international travel corridors’

Scarring – long term negative effects resulting from initial harm suffered during social and/or economic upheaval

Security theater (American) – measures that make individuals feel safer without necessarily actually protecting them: public temperature measuring and airport security procedures are examples

Lockstalgia (Times) – the notion that we may look back fondly upon the period of confinement

Clandestine barbers – hairdressers operating illicitly before being allowed to reopen after lockdown

Decompression – the release of inhibitions and surge in misbehaviour expected following the opening of UK pubs and restaurants on 4 July 2020

Safecation – a holiday in a destination thought to be safe while the pandemic continues elsewhere

Wet pubs (Irish) – pubs selling only drinks and not food, so the last to be allowed to open after lockdown

#casedemic – the suggestion that governments are misleadingly using case numbers rather than more meaningful indices in order to implement unnecessary restrictions in what is actually a waning pandemic

Tech-celeration – during 2020 the pandemic accelerated the adoption of many technological behaviours, from video-conferencing and online shopping to remote working and distance learning

Parklet – an extension of a city pavement to provide additional outdoor seating or leisure space when social distancing is enforced and indoor spaces are subject to restrictions

Risk normalisation – a relaxing of vigilance and compliance with regulations by a public now becoming used to pandemic conditions, observed in November 2020 in the UK

Vaccine hesitancy – a reluctance to take, or fear of the consequences of taking the coronavirus vaccine once available (e.g in the UK from December 2020)

Corona-compromised – (of an event) called off, postponed or abandoned due to the ongoing threat of the virus

Twindemic – a posited scenario in which an epidemic, such as COVID, is accompanied by an outbreak of a second infectious disease, such as human or non-human influenza

Pandemicide – gross negligence or deliberate strategy leading to widespread loss of life during the pandemic, a charge levelled at Donald Trump in a September 2020 publication

Coronasomnia (Washington Post) – sleeplessness as a result of anxiety related to the coronavirus pandemic

Coronaversary – the anniversary, in mid-March 2021, of the first tangible reactions to, and realisation of the impact of COVID-19 infections

Vaccine bounce (New Statesman) – the upswing in approval ratings for the UK government following public perceptions of a successful vaccination programme

Re-entry syndrome – the stresses accompanying adjusting to emergence from lockdown

Scariant – a virus mutation or variant which is promoted as being alarming without adequate evidence

Jab-fest – a frantic launch of a large-scale vaccination programme as in India in April 2021

Surge-jabbing – an intensification of a vaccination programme to deal with a highly contagious new variant, as in the UK in May 20121

Variant of concern – a new and more dangerous virus strain

Exit wave – a resurgence in COVID infections predicted to follow an ending of restrictions, of the kind planned for July 19 2021 in the UK 

Immunity debt – the phenomenon whereby cases of other infectious diseases, such as norovirus, increase more than usual once protective measures against COVID are removed.

Breakthrough infections – cases in which individuals become infected despite having been vaccinated

Fauxvid – symptoms of malaise mistaken for COVID 

NOVID – a common cold whose symptoms mimic those of COVID

PPSD – ‘post-pandemic stress disorder’, a condition promoted by psychotherapist Owen O’Kane in the summer of 2021

Flurona – a rare combined infection of influenza and COVID, recorded in Israel in December 2021

Long social distancing – the phenomenon whereby anti-pandemic precautions continue to be practised by some after the pandemic seems to have subsided

Tripledemic – the possible scenario, for the winter of 2022, in which health services may be faced by COVID, seasonal flu and additional respiratory infections

 

The Rona | Know Your Meme

  1. Nicknames

Rona, Lady Rona, Miss Rona, roni, rone – the coronavirus personified/familiarised

The rona – the coronavirus

The ‘vid – coronavirus

The pandy – the global pandemic, (by Autumn 2020 sometimes in the form panny-D)

The pando (Australian) – the coronavirus pandemic

nCoV – the coronavirus in technical designation or shorthand

Boomer remover – the coronavirus viewed as a phenomenon resulting in the decimation of the babyboomer demographic

Nightingales – first used as a nickname for those singing or performing morale-boosting music from balconies, in gardens, later abandoned when the Nightingale emergency hospitals were opened (or rather, announced but not opened) across the UK

Long-haulers  – recovered victims of the virus who suffer long-term after-effects

Locky D – lockdown familiarised

Rat-lickers – those refusing to wear a mask (from the idea that potential victims of the bubonic plague licked rats to ward off infection)

Vaccine-hunters (CNN) – desperate individuals who, rather than wait for invitation to be vaccinated, stalk a pharmacy, hospital or other vaccination site in the hope of obtaining a leftover dose

Innoculati – the fortunate individuals who have already been vaccinated

Halfcinated – having received the first of two vaccine doses

Strollout (Australia) – the rollout of anti-virus vaccination, perceived as being too slow

Nosers – mask wearers who negate its effect by leaving their nose uncovered

  1. Slang

Miley Cyrus (UK rhyming slang) – coronavirus

Covidiot – a person behaving irresponsibly in conditions of containment

Morona – a person behaving stupidly because of or during the coronavirus outbreak

Coronalusional – suffering from disordered thinking as a result of or during the COVID-19 crisis

Sanny (Australian) – hand sanitiser

Iso (Australian) – (self-) isolation

Isobar (Australian) – a home bar stocked, displayed and/or depleted in confinement

Isodesk (Australian) – a workplace improvised or used in confinement

Coronacation – cessation of study or work due to the pandemic, viewed as a holiday

Corona break – a period of confinement envisaged as a short holiday

Drivecation – a holiday, typically in a motorhome, in one’s own driveway

Hamsterkaufing – stockpiling and/or hoarding (adapted from German)

Coronaspeck – extra girth resulting from overeating in confinement

The COVID 19(lbs) (American) – extra body weight accrued during quarantine

Quaz (Australian) – to quarantine (oneself)

Doomscrolling/doomsurfing – obsessively accessing upsetting news online

Coroanacuts – haircuts carried out at home, especially when less than successful

De-roning – attempting to remove traces of coronavirus by cleaning/disinfecting items that have recently entered the home

Zumped –‘dumped’ by a partner via videolink or otherwise online

Ronavation – renovation or refurbishment during lockdown, an Instragram hashtag

Coronacranky – short-tempered as a result of enduring lockdown

Flu bro (American) – a male coronavirus denier, from their assertion ‘It’s just the flu, bro.’

Quarandating (Canadian) – using cellular dating apps to meet people and go on virtual dates through platforms such as FaceTime

Zoombie – someone incapacitated by too much screen time, or a malicious disruptor of a videoconference

Quarantanning – sun bathing or using tanning equipment during confinement

Quaran-stream – binge-watch TV series, movies while enduring lockdown

Smizing – smiling with the eyes, as when wearing a facemask (a term coined by US celebrity Tyra Banks in 2009)

Spendemic – a dramatic increase in online shopping by those confined during the coronavirus crisis

Coronasshole – first applied in March 2020 to US panic buyers, then in June to US citizens refusing to wear masks. In July the synonym #maskhole began to trend on social media

Spreadneck (American) – an ignorant and/or stubborn anti-vaxxer

Maskulinity – a macho refusal to wear a face covering

Furlough Merlot – a red wine assuaging the anxiety of lockdown and WFH

Lockdown locks – long and /or unruly hair following months without cutting or styling

Blursday – an undifferentiated day or date due to uncertainty after long confinement and isolation

Airgasm – the intense pleasurable feeling experienced when able to remove a mask and breathe freely again

Vaxinista – someone who flaunts the fact that they have been vaccinated as if a fashion statement

Vaccine sommelier – a person delaying vaccination until they can choose their preferred brand of vaccine

Pinged – advised by the NHS phone app to self-isolate

Pandemic pants (Australian) – track-suit bottoms worn while locked down or WFH

Nerd immunity – the notion, based on studies reported in February 2021, that those wearing glasses are less susceptible to COVID infection

Corona classic – the original strain of infection rather than a later variant

Partygate – the scandal surrounding allegations that those in authority flouted their own restrictions by holding illicit celebrations and gatherings

How to shift your conference online in light of the coronavirus ...

  1. Homeworking and teleconferencing

WFH, wfh – working from home

Productivity ninja – a stress-free, purposeful and high-achieving worker (title of work by Graham Allcott)

Covidpreneurs (Irish Times) – individuals or businesses succeeding in thriving and innovating  in a pandemic environment

Zoombombing – hijacking and/or interrupting videoconferencing on the Zoom platform

Slackers – remote workers using the Slack groupworking application(s)

Virtual backgrounding** – adjusting one’s visible décor for videoconferencing

Videofurbishing** – enhancing one’s décor prior to videoconferencing

Zoom room – part of one’s home kept clean and inviting for use as videocalling background

Quarantini – a martini mixed and consumed in conditions of confinement

Locktail hour – a time allotted to consumption of cocktails while isolating

Upperwear – clothing selected for display above the waist only

Telecommutercore (Guardian) – casual clothing selected for use when videoconferencing and/or home-based working

Infits – outfits worn in conditions of confinement

Quaransheen** – a shiny nose and/or forehead visible while engaged in videoconferencing

Zoomlift** – the cosmetic surgery supposedly required as soon as obligatory online interaction ends

Coronaviva – an oral examination or thesis defence taken online during lockdown

Quaranteams – groups forming and performing – music or competing in quizzes for example – together virtually during lockdown

Quaranqueens – a woman excelling during lockdown, particularly one excessively cleaning and tidying

Quarantrolls – individuals sending malicious online messages in conditions of and/or referring to quarantine

Quarantunes – music produced and/or performed under lockdown

Quaranzine – a magazine produced under lockdown

Coronalit – literature produced during/inspired by the pandemic

Corona-fi – fiction or science-fiction produced during/inspired by the pandemic

Zoom mullet – a hairstyle developed in lockdown which is ‘camera-ready’ (presentable to a webcam) at front and sides and dishevelled at the rear

#isobaking – home-baking in confinement and/or exchanging recipes: a hashtag on TikTok and Instagram

Zoomitzvah (Jewish Chronicle) – a bar mitzvah celebrated via video app in confinement

Homeference – a virtual conference that participants can attend remotely

Zoomed out – exhausted and/or disoriented after spending too much time in videoconferences

Zoom fatigue – a draining of energy resulting from the unusual stresses involved in interactions in virtual meetings

The wipe-away – the high-visibility handwaving that indicates the person is leaving a virtual meeting

Toxic productivity – the unfair expectation that professionals, creatives and others should be able to stay productive, even achieve more during adverse situations such as the Covid-19 pandemic

Uberise – to emulate Uber in moving to a system whereby employees decide which hours of the day they will plug in under the work from home model during the pandemic

The elephant in the Zoom – an unmentioned presence or unacknowledged issue in an online meeting, or an elephant themed background or video

Desk disco – defined by  translator and copywriter Ian Winick as ‘taking a few minutes out to boogie on down at your desk’

Hate-wear (New York Times) – clothing items, usually unfashionable, possibly also uncomfortable, worn in confinement for their utility rather than their style

Sadwear (Esquire) – ‘clothes that make us feel better when we’re sad, specifically born out of the existential ennui of lockdown’

Apocalypse beard (Guardian) – uncontrolled facial hair that can double as a face-warmer

Hybrid working – a combination of working remotely and on-site

WFA – working from anywhere. ‘It also used to be called telecommuting – that’s an example of how language changes over time, says Tracey Fritcher, principal strategist of employee experience at ServiceNow.’ Their useful glossary, published by the Guardian, is here****

Pandemic posture – ‘slouching, slumping and hunching’, the unhealthy effects of 18 months of working at home or in unstructured environments

Legacy hand –  a hand raised to ask a question in a virtual discussion and the hand is not subsequently lowered, leading to confusion

  1. Demographics

Coronials – The generation born after December 2020 as a result of the enforced quarantining of their parents due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Gen(eration) C – in 2018 designated young ‘connected consumers’, now may refer to young people coming of age since the onset of the coronavirus crisis

Quaranteens – the generation who will become teenagers in 2033 -4

Coronavirus Pandemic: 7 Social Distancing-Friendly Activities To ...

  1. Security measures

Elbump – an elbow contact in place of handshaking or other physical greeting

Coronadodge – swerving to avoid passers-by to comply with distance restrictions

Couple-spreading – couples permitted under regulations to walk together taking up excessive space in public places

Covid waltz – manoeuvring to avoid close contact with passers-by while distance restrictions are in place

Loopholing (South African) – exploiting imprecisions or allowances in distancing restrictions in order to travel

Overreaching – enforcing crisis-related regulations too zealously

Yob-dobbing – reporting someone’s antisocial behaviour to authorities

Ronadobbing (Australian) – informing on those contravening crisis-related restrictions

Coronasnitching ** – informing on those contravening crisis-related restrictions

Covidobbing** – informing on those contravening crisis-related restrictions

Coronagrass** – a person who informs on those contravening crisis-related restrictions

Curtain-twitching – peering at and/or spying on neighbours

Corona-shaming (New York Times) – publicly criticising those, particularly celebrities, who have infringed public health regulations

Masklessness – wearing no face-covering, in US often as a gesture of defiance and/or disbelief in standard pandemic narratives and official advice

Whack-a-mole – a piecemeal response to a major problem, such as ad hoc local lockdowns in the context of a second wave of infection

Cohorting  – imposed grouping of health care workers and others, for example teachers and students working together or prisoners and guards, who are potentially susceptible to viral infection

Covid marshals – officials sent to public locations to enforce new UK social distancing rules from September 2020

Lockdown light  – used in Germany and elsewhere in October 2020 to describe a set of restrictions on movement and behaviour that falls short of a full lockdown

Tier 4 – an upgrading of the UK’s three-tier pandemic management system of graduated local lockdowns to a national lockdown, envisaged from November 2020

Mockdown – a term trending in November 2020 and again in January 2021 indicating a lockdown that is insufficiently enforced and/or widely disregarded

Coronavirus UK latest from Downing Street as death toll passes ...

  1. Inappropriate terms

The China virus

Tsunami

Epicenter (NY)

Herd (UK Government)

Cull (Telegraph)

Supersurge

Plague

Coronacoma (New York Times)

War metaphors – see https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/makingsciencepublic/2020/03/17/metaphors-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/

Body count

Take it on the chin (Boris Johnson)

Take one for the team (Stanley Johnson)

Operation last gasp (Boris Johnson)

Brave fighter

The great leveller

Following the science (UK Government) ***

Green shoots (UK Government advisor)

Blitz spirit

Over interpreting

Lockdown Stasi (Daily Mail)

Perfect storm

Wet market

#Scamdemic, #shamdemic, #Plannedemic, #Coronascam – hashtags used by US conspiracy theorists attempting to discredit orthodox narratives of the pandemic

Invisible mugger (Boris Johnson)

Good British common sense (Boris Johnson)

PPE equipment

Hiding at home

#SecondCummings

World-beating track-and-trace operation (Boris Johnson)

Muzzle

Mutant algorithm (Boris Johnson)

Moonshot (UK Government)

The last chance saloon

Panicdemic (Peter Hitchens)

…not take the foot off the neck of the beast (Boris Johnson)

V-day

Ahead of the curve (Priti Patel)

Plague Island

Let the bodies pile high in their thousands (Boris Johnson, allegedly)

The Indian variant

Freedom Day

Big Bang 

Demob happy (Boris Johnson)

Learn to live with the virus

The Johnson variant

Pingdemic 

Cower (Sajid Javid)

Miasmatists – a slur directed at those rightly asserting that coronavirus was airborne

Rampdown

Ride it out (Boris Johnson)

  1. Emoji

https://emojipedia.org/coronavirus/

‘You know how Gen Z are using ‘cornteen’ as a playful misspelling of ‘quarantine’? This is now reflected in the emoji spelling 🌽 Ear Of Corn Emojiteen.’

In Spain and Italy the combination 👑🦠 is used, as ‘corona’ is their word for crown

  1. Recently trending terms

Unprecedented

Cataclysm(ic)

Hunker down

Ramp up

Mobilisation

Cabin fever

Stir-crazy

Dark days

Strange days/times

Uncertain times

The new normal

Exit strategy

Bounceback/bounce back

Behind the curve

Calamitous

Infinite present

Snap back

Game changer

Gaslighting

Easing

Hubris

Obfuscation

Evolving

Mandatory

The Before Time(s)

U-turns

Fatigue

Compliance

Trying times

AI could help with the next pandemic—but not with this one | MIT ...

*Quote: “When some idiot second guesses a specialist, e.g. when a cartoonist pronounces on epidemiology lessons: to stay in your lane you must know your lane”

**These are terms which have been proposed in online discussions but which may not yet have embedded themselves in the national conversation

  *** From forensic linguist Professor Tim Grant; “following the science” There’s no such thing as “the science”. Scientific conclusions are often subtle and slippery. This phrase is being used to avoid responsibility by those taking political decisions. It’s the job of scientists to question, to disagree, to propose alternative explanations, alternative conclusions, to bring to the fore additional evidence that hasn’t been noticed. It’s the job of politicians to weigh this mess of conflictual evidence and make decisions. This decision making is hard and requires taking responsibility. Using “following the science” as cover, is spin doctoring of the worst kind. It’s cowardly, distancing, its-not-my-fault playing politics with this appalling crisis. It’s a failure of political leadership.    

**** The very useful glossary of WFH and office-related terms published in the Guardian in July 2021https://www.theguardian.com/lets-workflow-it/2021/jul/12/free-range-worker-to-zoom-bombing-your-complete-guide-to-the-new-office-jargon

 

 

Global Outbreak Word Cloud Concept Stock Photo, Picture And ...

It was gratifying in mid-April to see my studies referenced – very informally – in two of the UK’s highest circulation newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8232123/Covid-19-pandemic-triggers-new-wave-coronaspeak-slang.html

And to talk – very informally again – on the subject on Canadian radio

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-22-2020-1.5540906/covidiots-quarantinis-linguist-explains-how-covid-19-has-infected-our-language-1.5540914

More recently Michael Skapinker discussed covid-related language innovation in the Financial Times

https://www.ft.com/content/b7a6b3f0-830b-11ea-b872-8db45d5f6714?fbclid=IwAR3GXQS1esBzN1EZxf2LVgjXAjoZzG4kbqyopdKQ5yj0tWEArzQsWMT89GA

Peter Bakker and his colleagues at the University of Aarhus, Denmark have kindly shared their (not entirely serious) compilation of COVID-related language novelties…

COVIDictionary. Your go-to dictionary in times of Coronavirus and COVID-19

And Alice Moldovan, with input from Howie Manns and me, highlights Anglo-Australian rhyming slang…

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-14/miley-cyrus-coronavirus-covid19-cockney-rhyming-slang/12324930

In July 2020 Dutch news site NU.nl featured coronacoinages, with contributions by Ton den Boon and me…

https://www.nu.nl/281763/video/quarantinderen-en-toogviroloog-hoe-corona-de-taal-verrijkte.html

In July 2020 the New Yorker published its own guide to coronaspeak. While the content is amusing, I will not be adding these terms to my glossary until I’m sure they are in circulation among users other than journalists…

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/lexicon-for-a-pandemic

Although it’s distasteful to someone of my puritan sensibilities, I should also include this link to the Economist‘s guide to pandemic dating jargon…

https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/07/15/pandating-coronavirus-and-the-language-of-love

In  August 2020 one of the first, if not the first, academic studies of COVID-related neologisms appeared, with a very useful multilingual bibliography:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/english-today/article/englishbased-coroneologisms/99D6DA8CF3E953D1C3BC4B9EE574EE9C

In October students at UCL London posted a very useful update on COVID-related nicknames and slang:

https://thetab.com/uk/london/2020/10/15/the-quaran-dictionary-all-the-best-and-worst-slang-from-the-pandemic-37521

 

#CORONASPEAK – the language of Covid-19 goes viral

Latest Advice on Coronavirus (COVID-19) | Bournemouth and Poole ...

In trying to make sense of their new circumstances, under lockdown, in social isolation or distancing, ‘ordinary’ people are at the mercy of, and must come to terms with new language, some of it unfamiliar and difficult to process, some pre-existing but deployed in new ways.

I am using the shorthand #coronaspeak for all the novel expressions that the crisis has generated (US linguist Ben Zimmer coined the alternative ‘coronacoinages’, but my examples are not all new coinages, some are adaptations or existing terms). Phrases such as ‘social distancing’, ‘self-isolation’ have become familiar, even if their meanings are still to some extent contested. But in a society in which, we are told, around 5 million UK citizens cannot even access the internet, how are we to negotiate this rise in ‘lexical load’, this ‘lexical overload’?

I’d like to consider first the ‘medicalisation’ of everyday language: the way in which technical terms from the jargon of sciences and healthcare cross over into popular usage. Some of these words and phrases seem transparent, even if their histories and implications are actually complicated. ‘Social distance’, for instance, was previously employed in sociology and psychology for, in the words of Dr Justin Thomas, ‘how close we are happy to get to members of an outgroup, e.g. would you be happy to marry a [insert outgroup here]’ and many, including the World Health OrganisationWHO –  with hindsight have proposed that ‘social distancing’ (also criticised for being an oxymoron) be replaced by the more literal ‘physical distancing’ in present circumstances. A phrase like ‘test-vacuum’ can seem ambivalent or opaque, but in the current context refers specifically to the failure of the UK authorities to emulate Germany in carrying out mass testing of the population. Even the most basic concepts like testing, tracing are actually very difficult to unpack, especially as the official narrative on these pivots constantly – at times, it seems, deliberately.

There are, unsurprisingly, regional variations in the preferred terminology: quarantine in official and popular usage and shielding in place describing a policy protocol are heard relatively rarely in the UK; cocooning likewise, though it is a central plank in health policy in Ireland. There are also novel and forbidding coinages which at first defy interpretation, even if they describe something otherwise indescribable: I was recently warned against ‘epistemic trespassing’ which means, in the words of one Twitter contact, ‘when some idiot second guesses a specialist, e.g. when a cartoonist pronounces on epidemiology’

Self-isolate or quarantine? Coronavirus terminology explained ...

Some other examples of words which have transitioned into the national conversation, moving from technical or specialist registers into general usage are listed here with comments…

Pathogen – an organism that causes disease, such as bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi

Antigen – in immunology a toxin or other foreign substance which induces an immune response in the body, especially the production of antibodies

Viral load – the total amount of viral particles that an individual has inside them and may shed

Respiratory – relating to the organs of the body responsible for breathing. When pronouncing, the word used often to have the stress on the first syllable, but more recently the stress is usually placed on the second (‘pir’)

Ventilation – the use of artificial methods to assist breathing

Proning – requiring intensive care patients to lie on their front to reduce their need for oxygen

Incubation period – the time between being exposed to a virus and becoming aware that one is infected

Intubation – the inserting of an endotracheal tube (ET or ETT) through the mouth and into the airway of a patient to assist breathing: extubation describes its removal

Pandemic – an epidemic – a quickly spreading disease – which has spread very widely and infected a high number of individuals

Vectors (of transmission) – agents such as infected individuals that transmit infectious pathogens into a population

Contact tracing  – identifying, then assessing and monitoring those who have come into contact with an infected individual.

Flatten the curve (popularised to ‘squash the sombrero’) – to slow the spread of a virus, for instance by  social containment measures, so that fewer people need to seek treatment at any given time. The term is epidemiologist jargon, but has been criticised as being a euphemism

PPE – personal protective equipment used to shield the wearer from work-related hazards

Palliate – means to make (a disease or its symptoms) less severe without removing the cause. hence ‘palliative’ care where no cure is possible. Ironically, ‘palliate’ can also mean to disguise the seriousness of (an offence)

Psychoneuroimmunity – the desirable state achieved by way of ‘preventive strategies of healthy lifestyle, regular exercise, balanced nutrition, quality sleep and a strong connection with people’

Furlough(ed) – appearing in English in the 17th century, the word is related to Dutch verlof, leave, and refers to the granting of a paid leave of absence. The term was employed in British military jargon during WW1 but until now was generally considered an Americanism

Mitigation – the reduction of the severity of symptoms

Immunocompromised – having a weakened immune system, hence less able to fight infections and other diseases

Comorbidity – one or more illnesses or diseases suffered by a patient at the same time as a primary condition

Harvesting effect – a temporary increase in the mortality rate when secondary factors such as underlying health conditions add to the number of victims of an epidemic

Patient zero – the first case or the first documented patient in an epidemic

Red zone – a geographical area or location classified as having the highest levels of infected individuals and which should be placed under quarantine

Super-spreader – an infected individual who transmits the infection to a higher than average number of others

Asymptomatic – displaying no symptoms of an infection. Infected individuals who are asymptomatic are sometimes known as ‘silent carriers’. The term began trending again in the light of the second wave in October 2020, sometimes in the variant form asymptomic

Hot spot – a cluster of, or a location showing a concentration of cases of infection

Petri dish  – literally a shallow dish in which biologists culture cells in a laboratory. Now commonly referring to an enclosed environment in which infections can spread unchecked

Cluster effect – the result of concentrations of people at social gatherings, often in public places, enabling an accelerated spread of infection

Shielding – by or for the most vulnerable individuals, this means taking the most stringent measures in order to minimise interaction

Shelter in place – a US security protocol whereby citizens are warned to confine themselves, originally in the event of chemical or radioactive contamination

Crisis triage – emergency short-term assessment and assignment of treatment of individuals suffering from sudden overwhelming medical or psychological symptoms

Peak surge – a term properly used in relation to power surges in electric circuits but used now to describe the maximum level reached in an accelerating increase in cases of infection

Fomite – an inanimate object contaminated with or exposed to infectious agents (such as pathogenic bacteria, viruses or fungi), which can transfer disease to a new host.

Zoonotic diseases – infections which spread from animals or insects to humans, also known as zoonoses

Donning, doffing and disposing – putting on, removing and disposing of PPE (personal protective equipment) in official medical parlance

R rate – R0 (‘r-nought’) is a mathematical gauge of the reproduction rate of a contagious disease

Behavioural fatigue – a supposed reluctance to adhere to social conduct norms, should imposed strictures, such as containment and confinement, continue for too long

Seroprevalence – the number of persons in a population who test positive for a specific disease based on blood tests, a measure of cumulative infection

Anosmia – loss of the sense of smell, and in some cases also taste

Pod – a self-contained unit of confinement such as an isolation pod in a medical facility, a social contact or family pod providing space for personal interaction during quarantine. Bubble is used in the same sense in some settings

Immunity passport – a proposed certificate issued by national authorities confirming that the bearer is free from infection

Non-pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs)  –  actions, apart from vaccinations and medicine, that people and communities can take to help slow the spread of contagious infections, also known as community mitigation strategies

Aerosol transmission – the spread of infection via tiny, lingering airborne liquid particles rather than by exhaled droplets or fomites (contaminated objects)

Long COVID – the experience of those who have recovered from initial coronavirus infection but continue to suffer from a range of significant symptoms

Transmission advantage – the ability of a mutant strain of a virus to spread more quickly than the prevalent version of the infection

Zero Covid – a strict containment strategy or policy typically involving total shutdowns

Surge testing – additional community testing offered and encouraged in areas where mutations of the coronavirus have led to a sudden increase in cases of infection, even by asymptomatic individuals

Booster dose/shot – a third vaccination for those who have already received two 

Plan B – a set of precautionary measures outlined by the UK government in September 2021, potentially to replace those in place, in the event of a surge in infections at the onset of winter. Medical experts unsuccessfully urged the government to move to this level of response in October.

Critical incident – a set of circumstances (as in January 2022) requiring special emergency responses, defined by the NHS as ‘any localised incident where the level of disruption results in the organisation temporarily or permanently losing its ability to deliver critical services, patients may have been harmed or the environment is not safe, requiring special measures and support from other agencies’

Endemicity – a ‘dynamic equilibrium’ in which infection rates stabilise in a society, allowing management of the pathogen

Primacy effect – the psychological phenomenon whereby the earliest in a list of successive instructions remains the most influential, as with public perceptions of the importance of hand sanitising when this is subsequently shown to be relatively ineffective.

 

China fall in coronavirus cases undermined by questionable data ...

I am still appealing for contributions to my lexicon via this site, on Twitter or by email, and will thank and credit contributors where possible. My next posts will look at slang and colloquialisms and newly invented expressions related to Covid-19.

For the terms considered here I am very grateful to, among others, Professor Carmine Pariante, Alan Pulverness, Nigel McLoughlin, Gail Jennings and Julian Walker

There is a comprehensive glossary of coronavirus-related technical terminology, published in Canada and updated weekly:

https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/publications/covid19-eng.html

I belatedly became aware of the important response by linguists to the pandemic in China, and to the novel concept of emergency linguistics. More details of the role of language in that context can be found here:

Language lessons of COVID-19 and linguistic disaster preparedness

Colleagues at King’s College London are looking beyond the Anglosphere at the ways in which language is used both to react to and to construct the realities of the global crisis:

Worldmaking in the Time of Covid-19

In August 2020 the German army published this comprehensive multilingual glossary of technical and administrative COVID-related terminology:

https://www.bundeswehr.de/de/organisation/personal/organisation-/bundessprachenamt/corona-glossar-in-sieben-sprachen-veroeffentlicht-1104036

One year later and abiding problems are covid-denial, vaccine hesitancy and vaccine refusal. Professor Elena Semino continues her research into the framing and metaphorical features of pandemic-related communications:

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/vaccination-discourse/2021/09/12/from-roast-dinners-to-seatbelts-metaphors-to-address-covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy-by-elena-semino/

Another intriguing aspect of corona-discourse is the use of phraseology in reporting and in messaging, as described in this retrospective from September 2021:

Retrospective academic treatments continued to appear after the pandemic’s apparent subsidence in most of the anglosphere. This from August 2022:

https://benjamins.com/catalog/ll.8.2-3

THE LANGUAGE OF PROTEST 2 – the art(s) of subversion

Demonstration against UK visit by Donald Trump, Cambridge, 2017

The juxtaposition of image and text in public protest has a long history. My previous post focused on demonstrators’ placards and on the ingenious visual displays staged by Led by Donkeys on hoardings and projections.

Here I offer the first sequence in a purely visual chronology, showing some famous and some lesser-known examples of subversion (whether overtly political or overtly absurdist) for public consumption…

Image result for john heartfieldAnti-Nazi photomontage by ‘John Heartfield’ (Helmut Herzfeld) 1936

Notting Hill, Westbourne Park and Grand Union Canal,  London, 1970s, photos by Roger Perry

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Image result for jenny holzer

Image result for jenny holzer

Conceptual artworks by US artist Jenny Holzer

funny-vandalism-creative-street-art-25

Image result for witty graffiti in public places

Image result for witty graffiti in public places

funny-vandalism-creative-street-art-7

Anonymous graffiti, vandalism and alterations

Image result for graffiti motorway flyover

Image result for graffiti motorway flyover

Image result for anti gentrification graffiti

Anti-gentrification messages, East London

Image result for political protest ploughed into landscape

Brexit protest message ploughed in field | Shropshire Star

Protest as land art

A further (very well-chosen by Lyn McKelvie in 1996) selection of examples of photomontage, subvertising and ad-jamming follows here:

And Yet It Moves by John Heartfield
And Yet It Moves by John Heartfield
Rationalization Is On The March by John Heartfield
Rationalization Is On The March by John Heartfield
Creative print ads target plastic pollution | Advertising | Creative Bloq
Creative print ads target plastic pollution
wwf rechauffement climatique glace monde fond
Powerful Environmental Ads
Creative print ads target plastic pollution | Advertising | Creative Bloq
Creative print ads target plastic pollution…
1991
1996

Here, from Flashbak, are Richard Davis’ striking photos of Manchester in the 1980s and 90s, showing slogans and graffiti in their settings, alongside the people of Hulme:

Richard Davis’s Brilliant Photos of Hulme – 1980s and 1990s

For more examples of magazine texts, leaflets, posters and placards, see

Bamn (By Any Means Necessary): Outlaw Manifestos & Ephemera, 1965-1970 by Peter Stanstill and David Zane Mairowitz, Autonomedia 1999

And from April 2021:

Image

In January 2023 came news of another subvertising or ad-jamming campaign, this time by Brandalism UK and other teams across Europe. Toyota and BMW were targeted for their misleading adverts and anti-climate lobbying and 400 car billboards were hacked and replaced in 14 cities:
Parody Toyota billboard in Brighton, UK

(IN)EFFECTIVE INVECTIVE – the language of protest

During the Vietnam War, every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.” -Kurt Vonnegut

Image result for Led by Donkeys white cliffs today

This morning, 31 January 2020, official date of the UK’s departure from the EU, the agitprop group Led by Donkeys projected on to the white cliffs of Dover a message from the UK to its European neighbours…

The group had been active since the Brexit referendum, erecting billboards across the UK replaying the messages of pro-Brexit and populist politicians. Led by Donkeys scores precisely because it doesn’t employ wit or wordplay, or Banksy‘s admittedly striking  visual epigrams, but simply replicates and reminds us of the messages it thinks we should beware of…

Image result for led by donkeys

In the UK the recent language of protest, on placards in particular or in graffiti, has tended to employ irony, sarcasm, flippancy, facetiousness, to get its messages across by way of puns and cultural allusions…

Anti Brexit Signs

Invective, banter and wit are mainstays of the British national conversation, irreverence and unseriousness is a default, obligatory style of private and public discourse…

Anti Brexit Signs

The signing and symbology featuring in public demonstrations, and the debates taking place in public spaces is social media IRL; the slogans and quips on display are Twitter come to the streets…

Image result for lots of funny placards demonstrators

The tactics used by Led by Donkeys rather recalls the media manipulations advocated and practised by activists in the 1960s. By way of detournement the Situationists pioneered the hijacking of the multimodal spectacle projected – or inflicted – by capitalism, appropriating and reworking words and images and turning it against its creators…

…and in later anti-capitalist subversions employing the strategies known as culture-jamming, ad-jamming, ad-busting or subvertising

Graffiti Billboard. Postcard. If this lady were a car, she'd run you down.  Photo by Jill Posener, 1979.  Postcard published in England.

The street protestors’ placards, for all their wit, wisdom and wrath, have been dismissed by some as self-indulgent, harmless venting and ultimately ineffective. The rightists’ dismissals are perhaps to be expected…

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/03/dont-be-fooled-by-the-twee-placards-at-the-peoples-vote-march/

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/03/25/the-reactionaries-are-on-the-march/

But slightly less predictable is disapproval from the Greens…

http://bright-green.org/2017/08/22/ive-had-enough-of-your-witty-placards/

graffiti saying 'words do not mean anything today'

All these protest styles and strategies are part of a rich and complex tradition which I have only touched upon in this short post. I will shortly add some, hopefully more detailed and more profound observations on the subject on this site, together with a visual history which I hope to incorporate in an upcoming broadcast…

Votes for Women

 

Today’s projection by Led by Donkeys differs from their static hoardings in using an original filmed recording of war veterans, and in adding a poignant final message in what looks like a heartfelt personal coda…

Image result for Led by donkeys our star

It does however appropriate a pro-Brexit trope, as well as an iconic setting, substituting real warriors for Brexiteer nostalgia and for what the left derides as ‘airfix patriotism’ -the false memories and imaginary heroism of those who cannot remember or have never studied the real British past.

In June 2020 the Open University made available its short film on the Language of Protest, accompanied by an essay by Dr Philip Seargeant on the same subject…

 

Here, with his kind permission, is Philip’s article, updating the topic for an audience still undergoing pandemic restrictions…

The Language of Protest: political demonstration in the age of Covid-19

..and, in September 2022, the Enough is Enough movement

TALKIN’ ‘BOUT MY GENERATION

Image result for baby boomers meme

 

People try to put us d-down (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
Just because we g-get around (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-c-cold (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)…

 

I passed the author of those words in the street the other day. Babyboomer Pete Townshend (of the Who rock group, for younger readers) was looking characteristically mournful. I, only a few years younger than Pete, am feeling characteristically feisty as I mount a one-man fightback against the latest slurs directed at us both. I’m talkin’ ‘bout the current dismissive catchphrase ‘OK Boomer’, imported from the USA along with a barrage of boomer-baiting in social media and in the press*. I fully understand that this is in part a fully understandable backlash by younger people against the relentless criticism and condescension directed at them by their elders for years – vitriolic in the USA, slightly more measured in the UK, where the focus has been more narrowly concentrated on trying to market to ‘youth’, whoever they may be.**

Image result for OK boomer

We boomers have to own the appalling voting record of many of our number, and we have to overcome our passive-aggressive bumptiousness. US humorist P J O’Rourke pioneered the uneasy self-deprecation that for a long time characterised our embarrassment about characterisation: ‘Once the Baby Boom had gone through all of its rudimentary phases of ideological development, from revolutionary pimples to Reaganite hip replacement, the true politics of our generation would be revealed. In America the reasonably well-off and moderately comfortable are the angry masses. It has to do with borrowing Mom’s car.’

Image result for baby boomers meme

Our age demographic has nonetheless been unfairly maligned for far too long. It’s time now to forget the clichés and facile recriminations, move beyond intergenerational strife based on slogans and soundbites and to revisit some of the beliefs that we held to, and the ideas that we explored. I’ll be looking at how this might be achieved in my next post.

I have never really been comfortable with the labels adopted for categorising generations, age-groups and consumer cohorts. But I’ve been guilty of promoting them myself. I only heard today of the sub-division of the babyboom demographic, known in the US as ‘Generation Jones‘***, but back in 2014 I described another, then newly discovered tribe, one that emerged from the consumerist jungle before slipping back into obscurity…

 

Living life to the full: According to the report, Britain's over-50s are more active and outgoing than ever

 

‘Trend forecasters The Future Laboratory have promoted the term superboomers to define a new wave of consumers, key players in lifestyle markets. Now forming 24% of the UK population, rising to 33% by 2030, controlling 75% of the nation’s wealth, (with another £3 billion coming soon from pension cash-ins) the over-55 demographic is rebooting, redefining former notions of aging and retirement. Their enthusiasm for digital media, starting up new businesses (as encore entrepreneurs in the jargon), fitness and self-improvement – and later-life dating, too – sets them apart from the pre-babyboomer generations. Enriched by runaway house prices they are juggling their property portfolios in ways that agents struggle to keep up with. In fact, the message for the entire commercial sector is catch on and catch up, since, according to a 2014 survey by High50.com, only 11% of superboomers think brands are interested in them, while 95% are certain that advertising is ignoring them altogether.’

I had been one of the first to record the arrival, belatedly in the UK, of the millennial label. In 2007 I tried to define this new phenomenon for the readers of Business Life magazine…

Image result for tony thorne millennials

 

Millennials are the latest generation of young professionals. We’ve witnessed the rise of babyboomers and yuppies, then of the former slackers known as Generation X. This newest generational label (alternatively Generation Y or the Echo Boomers) refers to youngsters born between 1981 and 1999 and their coming of age has spawned a slew of articles in both specialist journals and popular media. Commentators are detailing how they differ from predecessors in their collective attitudes and describing how to manage them in the workplace. What is provable is that millennials are the most ethnically diverse, as well as the most digitally aware and empowered group yet to emerge. On their other characteristics, though, opinions differ sharply. In the UK some employers have castigated them as work-shy, semi-literate, needy and narcissistic while US behavioural ‘experts’ laud the millennials’ ability to multitask, their skill in balancing work and leisure as well as their supposed respect for elders and leaders, trust in institutions and allegiance to teams.’

Image result for tony thorne millennials

By December 2015 the MTV channel was declaring that Millennial, the term, and Millennials themselves were out of date. It had some novel proposals for the naming of the coming generation…

‘For those millennials looking forward to the day the baby boomers finally give up the ghost and hand over the keys to the world, MTV has some bad news. Millennials, with their social media narcissism and difficulty getting on to the career ladder, are yesterday’s news. The future, it seems, belongs to the next generation, one MTV has hereby decreed shall be dubbed The Founders, a name that, despite being a real word, is somehow very creepy, like the title of a supposed self-actualization men’s group your father would join in an attempt to get over your mother leaving, who before long would mysteriously have power of attorney over him. We can do better than that. Here are 10 better titles for the demographic cohort of tomorrow.

Generation Yawp

According to experts – and by experts, I mean marketing executives assuming expertise based on a desperate need to feel sure about anything in a rapidly evolving culture – post-millennials are driven to rebuild and redefine a society built around broken or corrupt systems of governance, hence (sort of) the name Founders. Unfortunately, these kids have also been plugged into social media since the moment they were born, which means for many of them effecting real and lasting change means posting their complaints in capital letters and retweeting with wild abandon.

MTV Presents: The Currently Desirable Demographic

This nickname doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it does get right to the point – namely, that giving each generation a handle is increasingly a cynical attempt to corral young people with disposable income into a singular, easily defined mass for marketing purposes, and in the case of MTV taking it upon themselves to name this crowd also a sad swing at retaining some fading cultural currency. Maybe we’ll shorten it to The MTVCDD?

Virals

Let’s admit that within 10 years the chief connotation of the word “viral” will have nothing to do with biology and will primarily stand for what is steadily becoming the pinnacle of human achievement and state of being that is every post-millennial’s greatest desire.

Adelians

Adele sold almost 4m albums in the last few weeks, so it might be nice to name the next generation in her honor to mark what might be the last occasion that so many people agreed on anything.

Ferals

This name depends on whether literally any one of the current Republican presidential candidates manage to pull out a win next November and become what will surely be the last leader of the free world.

The Atlantians

And this one depends on how the climate change conference currently under way in Paris turns out.

iHosts

This one depends on whether Apple ever works out the kinks in those crummy wristwatches and moves on to what I suspect must be the next stage in their ultimate plan for us all.

The Duck and Cover Kids

Unless someone with political power ever gets it together and does something about the ease with which a deluded maniac can buy a gun and transition into a domestic terrorist.

Netflix/Chillers

For those not in the know, a “Netflix and chill” session means getting together to enjoy some streaming content prior to fornication. Many post-millennials may well be part of the first generation spawned through such a practice.

The HMA

In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, an old sailor is forced to bear the burden of an albatross he killed at sea by wearing it around his neck. As the Baby Boomers continue to die off, leaving irreversible environmental damage, systematic racism, endless war in the Middle East, and various financial disasters in their wake, post-millennials might want to adopt the slogan that every one of their grandparents deserves to have carved into their tombstone – Hold My Albatross – as a rallying cry. This one is unlikely, but you Baby Boomers … was embracing the Eagles and the Grateful Dead not enough? You couldn’t just ruin music, you had to take the whole world down, too?’

Like superboomers and many others, whether frivolous and facetious, or coined with deadly serious intent (I’ll be listing some in my next post), these labels instantly and ignominiously faded from the radar.

 

Image result for tony thorne millennials

 

*The OKBoomer media storm is summarised in an article from November 2019. What interests me especially is how, when zoomers, millennials, centennials and generation z rounded upon the hapless boomers, the cohort which is still dominant – generation x -once again escaped censure…

https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/can-baby-boomers-and-generation-z-be-friends-ok-boomer

** The passing of the OKBoomer memes and hashtags and the surrounding furore was (I think prematurely) announced, also in November 2019…

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/obituary-ok-boomer/602656/

*** members of Generation Jones have been sharing with me, on Twitter, their experiences of being the junior partners of the first boomers…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones

…And, one month on, Dr Anna Dixon comments from King’s College London on the intergenerational blame game…

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/blaming-baby-boomers-for-intergenerational-inequality-gets-us-nowhere

In March 2020 Newsweek joined the boomer fightback…

https://www.newsweek.com/2020/03/13/ok-millennial-boomers-are-greatest-generation-history-1490819.html

In the summer of 2021 the Policy Institute subjected generationist debates to statistical scrutiny. Among the resulting press reports was this, from The Conversation

In November 2022 the British Psychological Society published this insightful piece by Shaoni Bhattacharya

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/time-stop-talking-about-my-generation

In February 2023 an unusual cri-de-coeur from a Generation X commentator, decrying and denying the influencer culture embraced by younger millennials and Gen X

https://cintra.substack.com/p/the-nyt-op-ed-i-just-took-a-kill

One month later, in the New Yorker, the suggestion that the Boomer generation be subdivided into earlier and later cohorts…

THE BREXICON – updated and translated

Image result for brexit language

 

My project to create a glossary of Brexitspeak and the toxic terminology of Trumpism and populism* has thankfully attracted media attention and contributions from many specialists, writers and members of the wider public. I am very grateful and absolutely delighted to reproduce here the lexicon compiled by students on the MA in Translation and Professional Language Skills Programme 2019-20 at the University of Bath and their teacher Teresa Lander

 

Image result for Brexit cartoons from abroad

 

Their glossary not only brings together some of the latest expressions thrown up by rancorous, divisive debate, but adds a multilingual element, including as it does Brexit-related slang from neighbouring languages…

Glossary of slang terms/insults regarding Brexit 

Brexecution

 

“The resulting conversational punishment received when disagreeing with a supporter of the [B]rexit movement”

 

Source: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=brexecution

 

Brexiteer

 

“A person who is in favour of the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union” Source: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/brexiteer

French translation: Brexiteur/Brexiteuse

Source: https://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-french/brexiteer

 

Spanish translation: Partidario/Partidoria del brexit

Source: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-spanish/brexiteer

 

Brexiting

 

“Saying goodbye to everyone at a party and then proceeding to stick around” (Urban Dictionary)

 

Source: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Brexiting

 

German translation: Britischer Abgang (British farewell); this is a play on the older German term polnischer Abgang (Polish farewell), meaning to leave a party without saying goodbye.

Source: https://www.mundmische.de/bedeutung/43499-britischen_Abgang_machen

 

Russian translation: брексить (breksit) Source:

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/some-russians-think-britains-bungled-brexit-is-just- an-illusion/

 

Brexiety

 

“State of anxiety about Brexit experienced by opponents of Brexit”.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-hard-soft-boris-johnson-theresa-may-article- 50-brexchosis-a8221566.html

 

Brexiter

 

“A person who is in favour of the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union”.

 

Source: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/brexiter

 

Gammon

 

“A person who likely supports Brexit, and his habitual rantings about immigration and the scourge of political correctness have caused him to turn so red as to resemble a

pan-fried slab of ham (hence, a gammon)”

 

Source:

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/is-gammon-racist/560507/

 

Neverendum

“Holding multiple referenda to ‘force’ an unpopular decision” Source:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=90758cab-a7a2-46fb-bc0e-8cf615f230d0

 

Regrexit

 

“Regretting the decision to vote for Brexit. First used the day after the 2016 referendum”

 

Source:https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-hard-soft-boris-johnson-theresa-ma y-article-50-brexchosis-a8221566.html

 

Quitling

 

Someone, similar to a Brexiter, who is in favour of Britain leaving the European Union

 

Sources: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23quitling%20%23brexit&src=typed_query https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Quitling

 

Remoaner

 

“A person who is outraged and frustrated over the result of the European Union membership referendum in the United Kingdom which the vote took place on the 23rd of June of 2016 and relies on protests against the UK government and for the EU to prevent Brexit”.

 

Source: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Remoaner

 

Saboteur

 

“Unelected members of the House of Lords, and the 48% of the country who failed to vote for Brexit”

 

Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/19/crush-the-saboteurs-british-newspaper s-react-to-general-election

 

Spanish translation: saboteador

Source: https://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=saboteur

 

Strong and stable

 

“British prime minister Theresa May called a snap election in April 2017 saying the UK needed a “strong and stable” government because of Brexit. It is an expression she would live to regret after she lost her majority and was forced to rely on the Democratic Unionist Party to prop up her minority government”

Often used ironically Source:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/brexit-an-idiot-s-guide-to-the-united-kingdom-le

aving-the-european-union-1.3781560

 

German insults regarding Brexit:

 

Kleinbritannien’ (small Britain rather than Great Britain) – referring to our loss of status due to Brexit.

Source:https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/brexit-wie-sich-grossbritannien-verrannt-hat-k olumne-a-1258166.html

 

Nein-Sager’ (No-sayers) – referring to all of the rejected deals and compromises by the EU Source:

https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/politik-ausland/evp-chef-weber-schimpft-auf-brexit-briten-nur- noch-nein-sager-60636350.bild.html

 

Russian slang regarding Brexit:

 

Dramaturgia’ (no translation) – “a carefully-choreographed spectacle of apparent haplessness and impending chaos intended as eleventh-hour and fifty-ninth-minute gamesmanship with Brussels”

Source:https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/some-russians-think-britains-bungled-brexit-is-just- an-illusion/

 

Ministropad’ (no translation) – “a cascade of ministerial resignations,” (Rosenburg, 2018). “The term literally translates as “ministerfall.” Styled after the Russian word for “waterfall” (vodopad), it swaps out “water” (voda) for “minister” (ministr)”.

Source: https://qz.com/1467198/russian-media-captured-brexit-chaos-in-one-perfect-word/

 

Spanish slang regarding Brexit:

 

Un brexit salvaje’/’un brexit a las bravas’/’un brexit por las malas’ (a wild Brexit/a Brexit by force/a crooked Brexit) – referring to a no-deal scenario, a contrast to the less positive spin than English terms such as a ‘clean break’ Brexit

Sources:

https://www.elperiodico.com/es/internacional/20190828/el-gobierno-britanico-pedira-a-isabel-ii-q ue-suspenda-el-parlamento-hasta-mediados-de-octubre-7609291 https://elpais.com/economia/2019/02/16/actualidad/1550332885_907808.html https://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-may-intenta-aplacar-partido-impedir-brexit-mal as-20190331142623.html

 

Una vacuna contra el euroescepticismo’ (a vaccine against euroscepticism) – referring to the difficulty and mishandling of the Brexit process, that has caused support for outright leaving the EU to sink according to opinion polls in other member states

Source:

https://laprensa.peru.com/actualidad/noticia-brexit-ha-sido-vacuna-contra-euroescepticismo-dic e-tusk-nnda-nnrt-88628

 

French terms/insults regarding Brexit:

 

‘Le Royaume-Désuni’ (divided kingdom) – a play on words of the French term ‘le Royaume-Uni’ (United Kingdom) – used in the context of Brexit to refer to the way in which it has severely divided the UK population and threatened the overall unity of the country, particularly in relation to Ireland and Scotland.

https://www.touteleurope.eu/actualite/brexit-quel-avenir-pour-le-royaume-desuni.html

 

‘brexit’ (common noun – lower case ‘b’) – a tongue-in-cheek term proposed by French journalist Bernard Pivot, resulting from the Brexit strife, that would be used to signify any row, debate, negotiation or meeting that proves insoluble and shambolic. (e.g. l’assemblée des copropriétaires s’est achevée en brexit.)

https://www.thelocal.fr/20190911/lets-add-brexit-to-french-language-to-mean-terrible-mess-says

-leading-intellectual https://twitter.com/bernardpivot1/status/1171651030444118016?lang=en

 

‘Quel brexit!’ (alternative to ‘quel bordel’ – ‘what a shambles/mess!’) – a very tongue-in-cheek term proposed by French natives in response to Bernard Pivot’s ‘brexit’. In this instance, ‘brexit’ would convey the same meaning as French term ‘bordel’, meaning ‘shambles’ or ‘mess’, and would be used in any shambolic situation.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-france-lexicon/french-literati-ponder-brexit-dictionary- entry-idUKKCN1VW1IZ

 

‘Le bateau ivre’ (term originating from a poem by Arthur Rimbaud relating to the drifting and sinking of a boat lost at sea) – used metaphorically in the context of Brexit to refer to its lack of direction and absence of satisfactory leadership.

“Les partisans du Brexit ont réduit le Royaume-Uni à l’état de bateau ivre, sans cap ni capitaine.”

https://www.nicolasbaverez.com/2018/07/05/a-bord-royaume-uni-bateau-ivre/

 

Image result for Brexit cartoons from abroad

 

Finally, on election day, December 12 2019, this broadcast by London correspondent Marie Billon was aired on French Radio RF1 (my comments on Brexitspeak in the third sequence):

http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20191212-entre-orient-occident-le-piano-donne-le

 

* https://language-and-innovation.com/2018/08/23/a-glossary-of-skunked-terms-brexitspeak-and-the-toxic-terminology-of-populism/

 

 

DE-CODING SUPER SATURDAY’S BREXIT MOMENT

Today, we are told, is ‘Super Saturday’: not the last Saturday before Christmas, a bumper time for retailers, but an extraordinary weekend sitting of the UK parliament, only the third since the outbreak of World War 2 and this time to debate what one commentator has risked dubbing the ‘Brexit Moment’. Connoisseurs of new and exotic language can add to Super Saturday and Brexit Moment a pair of novel expressions trending in the same context: ‘greased piglet’ was the epithet bestowed by former PM David Cameron on his successor, explaining  that ‘the thing about the greased piglet is that he manages to slip through other people’s hands where mere mortals fail.’ The piglet himself appealed this morning for our ‘better angels’ to heal divisions (and do his bidding), a slightly puzzling evocation of Abraham Lincoln’s ringing words: ‘We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.’

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To accompany this morning’s unfolding developments RTE Radio asked me to record a commentary on these and other language innovations for their Irish listeners, and this is what I said…

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1/21639391

A slightly longer version of the script…

In struggling to keep abreast of the momentous events, the dramatic political developments generated recently by populism on both sides of the Atlantic, we have all of us  had to contend, too, with a rising tide of new language – exotic and unfamiliar new terms, old terms repurposed and weaponised, slang, jargon, catchphrases and slogans coming at us on a scale and at a speed not seen before in my lifetime.

I have been collecting the language of Trumpism, of Brexit and of the new alignments in politics, society and the media. I’m doing this because, as a linguist and a dictionary-maker it’s my responsibility not only to record but to make sense of new language, not only looking at its simple definitions but at its deeper, sometimes hidden implications and the hidden agendas and real intentions of the people who are using it.

I’m compiling what I call a glossary of the toxic terminology of populism*, a list of over 400 words and expressions which is growing by the day. Just a few moments ago I added the phrase ‘mediaeval methods’, a euphemism for torture used yesterday by the UK government to describe what they intend to apply to get MPs to back their latest Brexit deal.

George Orwell long ago exposed the twisting of truth and the hypocrisies of political language, but he was living in a much much simpler world. The language I am working with – novel notions like the Backstop, new idioms like dog-whistle and dogpile, jargon like identitarian, pathocracy or factuality – is not straightforward and not neutral or innocent. These are expressions designed to describe a changing social landscape, but also often designed to baffle, to bamboozle and confuse, to manipulate us. This of course is not new – the language of advertising and of politics has been doing this for a long time, but the multichannels, platforms and outlets and the multimedia techniques employed are far more pervasive and sophisticated than ever before.

Americans refer to words as ‘skunked’ if their meanings have become distorted and they become toxified, so that elite, metropolitan and cosmopolitan, snowflake and melt become slurs; libertarian, which once meant progressive, now refers to the far right, politically correct and social justice warrior and virtue-signalling are insults. When Boris Johnson calls his predecessor a girly swot, accuses a critic of humbug, the cosy, dated words are uttered with barely concealed venom.

Image result for girly swot molesworth

In the UK we still prize a sense of humour and some terms do sound lighthearted: cakeism is wanting to have your cake and eat it  – this time used by the EU against the UK for once – when Jeremy Corbyn is described as a magic grandpa or the absolute boy, the comments are double-edged to say the least. The so-called centrist dad (I’m probably one myself) is not just an ageing moderate but a feeble, cowardly enabler of the far right; magic money tree and unicorn are definitely not meant to be funny, and gammon** describes a ruddy-faced apopleptic male, invariably a Brexit supporter, but the word is an expression of genuine hate by the left.

There are some ironic phrases I find funny despite their serious intent: one is ‘Airfix Patriotism’ – Airfix sold plastic kits in the 50s and 60s for making model warplanes, and dads and kids would buy them and stick them together  with glue, evoking the heroic actions of pilots in the second world war – the patriotic rantings of the right today have been seen as based not on any understanding of our history but on a caricatured, kitsch vision of a heroic past. In the same way Ladybird libertarians base their false memories of an idyllic England on the beautiful watercolour illustrations in the Ladybird childrens books and on comics and tea-towels rather than social realities.

The terms that irritate me, though, are the clichés, catchphrases and slogans endlessly repeated; take back control, get it done, the will of the people, Brexit means Brexit…

There are scientific, technical-sounding words being bandied about which actually describe frightening changes in power relations: ethnonationalism, nativism, pathocracy (the rule of sociopaths and psychopaths), sadopopulism (strongman rulers who end up victimising even their own supporters) and even homonationalism – the co-opting of LGBT issues to advance a racist ideology.

Donald Trump is famous for the crudity of his language, but the metaphors used in political discourse in the UK have also moved further and further into the realm of conflict, warfare, occupation and collaboration: first directed at our supposed enemies in the EU, traitor, betrayal, saboteur are now aimed at anyone at home – quitlings or quislings – rabble – who fails to toe the party line with enough enthusiasm. Academics in the US and UK are analysing the rhetoric and the metaphors but tend to discuss these things with each other I want to talk to the public, to make people more aware.

Of course new circumstances do demand new language and some expressions just fill what linguists call a ‘lexical gap’ in the language: both-sidesism, whataboutery, de-platforming, cancel culture all were coined to describe concepts that didn’t exist or weren’t so important in the past, the whole vocabulary of Brexit, including the word itself is unprecedented. It sometimes feels as if our whole reality is unprecedented, and we, whether we lean to the right or to the left, just wish it would stop, but it’s not over yet: inevitably there will be much more verbiage, rhetoric, toxic terminology, to come…

*https://language-and-innovation.com/2018/08/23/a-glossary-of-skunked-terms-brexitspeak-and-the-toxic-terminology-of-populism/

**https://language-and-innovation.com/2018/05/15/gammon-up-against-the-wall/

 

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…NO WORD OF A LIE…?

Some new thoughts about the pervasive, destabilising, discomfiting Language of Lying in public life

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In 2015 Conservative politician Grant Shapps was forced to admit that he had ‘over-firmly denied’ having a second job under a pseudonym, selling a ‘get-rich-quick’ scheme while sitting as an MP.

In 2008 Hillary Clinton admitted that she had ‘misspoken’ when she claimed to have come under sniper fire during a 1996 visit to Bosnia.

A slang phrase, borrowed from US street and hiphop parlance into so-called MLE, ‘multicultural London English’, and often used by teenagers in London today, is ‘no cap!’ an exclamation which is the modern equivalent of the adult ‘no word of a lie!’ when swearing that you can be trusted, are being sincere, are telling the truth.

Orwell famously exposed the doublespeak of totalitarianism and I wrote some years ago about politicians’ evasive and duplicitous ‘weasel-words’ (a version of the article is on this site). In the late 90s I presented a series for the BBC World Service in which we looked at the politics of ‘spin’ and the work of the spin-doctors employed first by Bill Clinton and later by Tony Blair to massage their messages and to take ownership of the media narratives of the moment. The half-truths and untruths perpetrated today are more frequent, more widespread, some are more flagrant, and all are helped in their trajectories by multiple new platforms and outlets and far more sophisticated mainstream and social media capabilities.

Bethany Williams on Twitter: "Let's GET THIS GOING!!!! Call Sue at  Embroidability and order your “Make lying wrong again” baseball ($15) or  bucket hat ($20) in either navy blue or black -

I have collected examples of the toxic terminology and ‘skunked’ terms employed by demagogues and charlatans and echoed by compliant journalists and commentators (my glossary is on this site).  In the media maelstrom we are presently living through, untruths, half-truths and fake news, too,  have featured prominently and repeatedly in the national conversations of the US and the UK. With this in mind the Open University has produced a two-part mini-documentary on the Language of Lying in which I was privileged to take part. We talk about the concepts of truth and falsehood and about their incarnations in the current context of populism, Trumpism and Brexit.

Part One of the documentary is here:

I’m very grateful to Dr Philip Seargeant of the OU for initiating this project and asking me to take part, grateful too to Hamlett Films for producing the programme.

Here is the second part:

And here are links to two more recent commentaries on lying:

Acting Dishonestly Impairs Our Ability To Read Other People’s Emotions

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/trump-lies-kavanaugh-khashoggi.html

and in December Richard Sambrook reflected on the way that traditional norms of political and media behaviour had been abandoned in the 2019 election campaign:

https://theconversation.com/uk-election-2019-dirty-tricks-wrong-footing-a-media-that-now-faces-a-fight-to-remain-relevant-128326?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%201481214069&utm_content=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%201481214069+CID_ae975b7b58146a2a8760418def4730c6&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=some%20serious%20reflection%20is%20needed

In November 2019 we had news of the world’s biggest liar:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/22/festival-of-fibs-workington-man-is-crowned-worlds-biggest-liar

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A happy footnote: the OU documentary in which I took part won the Medea Award, announced in October 2020:

Click to access MEDEA-Awards-2020_press-release_Winners_20201028.pdf

By way of an update, in May 2021 Conservative MP Rory Stewart delivered this assessment of Prime Minister Boris Johnson:

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Then, in June…

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In August 2021 the UK government deployed a comms strategy that commentators referred to variously as ‘spin’, ‘stretching the truth’, ‘newspeak’… and ‘institutional lying’…

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In January 2022, as Boris Johnson faced a tide of indignation following revelations of lockdown breaches (the so-called ‘partygate’ scandal), Journalist Peter Oborne published a list of what he charitably termed ‘misleading statements’ made by the Prime Minister and still uncorrected in official records…

https://boris-johnson-lies.com/johnson-in-parliament

In April 2022 The Conversation challenged the view that the UK public were inured to lying by politicians…

A FRESH START – the lingo of the local(e)

I helped with the preparation of a language guide designed for UK students starting out on their courses this week. Based on a survey and on contributions from across the country the lighthearted but comprehensive guide highlights the dialect differences and the local slang expressions that freshers may encounter when they move to a new area to begin their studies.

Image result for King's College london students

With over 495,000 UK students set to depart for three years in a new university town, online learning platform, Quizlet (www.quizlet.com), has worked with local councils, poets, and language experts, to help students learn, understand, and use regional slang relevant to their new university town homes, through curated online study sets.

Working with institutions including the University of Bristol, This Is Edinburgh, Manchester Voices, and Liverpool City Council, Quizlet hopes to encourage students to learn the regional slang and dialect of their new home, in order to help build relationships between undergraduates and the local community, with a parallel survey of Quizlet’s student users revealing that 23% visit their university town only once before moving, and 11% never visit at all.

With essential phrases hand-picked by local experts, Quizlet is hosting regional slang study sets, covering the 20 biggest undergraduate populations as defined by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (www.hesa.ac.uk).

The study sets include over 160 dialectic words and phrases in total covering locations from Devon to Dundee, and Exeter to Edinburgh.

Example phrases include:

· ‘Antwacky’ means ‘Old-fashioned’ in Liverpool

Use in a sentence: “Your furniture is antwacky” / “Your furniture is old-fashioned”

Provided by Liverpool City Council

· ‘Gannin’ yem’ means ‘Going home’ in Newcastle

“I’m gannin’ yem on the train” / “I’m going home by train”

Lisa Matthews, Northern Poetry Library poet & author

· ‘It’s dark over Albert’s mother’s’ means ‘It’s getting cloudy’ in Manchester

“It’s dark over Albert’s Mother’s this afternoon!” / “It’s getting cloudy this afternoon”

Dr Erin Carrie, Project Manager of Manchester Voices

· ‘Half-soaked’ means ‘Slow-witted’ in Birmingham

“He’s a bit half-soaked he is” / “He’s not very clever”

Matt Windle, Birmingham Poet Laureate 2016-2018

· ‘Ginger’ means ‘A fizzy drink’ in Glasgow

“Gie’s a bottla ginger” / “hand me that bottle of pop”

Stuart Paterson, BBC Scotland Poet in Residence 2017-2018

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The full list of phrases and downloadable study sets can be found at:

http://www.quizlet.com/en-gb/content/british-slang

Richard Gregory, VP of International at Quizlet, comments: “Many of us will remember how nerve-wracking those initial university days are. Dozens of faces and names to remember, all in the backdrop of a new city. We created this resource to try and mitigate those university jitters: teaching students about their new surroundings through the important pillars of language and culture. The relationship between students and the local population can sometimes be a challenge, and that’s why all these language experts wanted to get on board to help us bridge linguistic divides.”

How connected do students feel to their university homes? To coincide with the regional language study sets, Quizlet polled over 1,030 students (aged 17-24) across the UK, to understand perceptions towards university towns:

A tenth of students ‘never’ visit their university town, before moving

44% of respondents said they had visited their new home ‘twice or three times’ before moving, while 23% admitted to having visited just ‘once’. Just 22% of students said they had visited ‘multiple’ times before moving, while 11% had ‘never’ visited their university location before making the move.

Nearly half of students don’t use or understand any local dialect words

Students can be reticent to use local dialect words in their new home, with 51% stating they ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ use and understand local dialect or phrases, but the other 49% said they ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ do.

Students believe locals generally perceive them positively

62% of students believe that local residents have a positive view of them, with students in Cambridge perceiving the most positive relationship (78%). However, 38% of students feel that local residents are ‘negative’ or ‘indifferent’ to them, with students in Durham expressing the worst relationship (65%).

…Although the majority ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ socialise with locals

28% of students asked stated they ‘rarely’ had social interactions with people outside of their university, while 16% stated they ‘never’ socialised with residents. This is in comparison with the 34% who said they ‘sometimes’ spoke and made friendships, while 22% would say they ‘often’ socialised with locals.

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I thought it might be interesting to compare the language listed in this new guide with the expressions I recorded at King’s College in London nearly two decades ago. For the curious my article from all those years ago is here…

Student slang as she is spoke – your passport to the in-crowd

Image result for the young ones

Tony Thorne 

Among all the guidance notes, union leaflets, maps and schedules that make up the Fresher’s welcome pack there is one aspect of student life that will almost certainly not be covered. No institution, however enlightened, is likely to provide you with that vital accessory, the key to unlocking the mysteries of undergraduate existence, the passport to instant social acceptance by your peers; a glossary of the very latest student slang.

Image result for King's College london students

Like any other group leading a self-contained existence outside the social mainstream, students have evolved a private language through which they can label one another, celebrate their shared pleasures, and keep the rest of the world at arm’s length. For at least two centuries the argot of Oxbridge and the public schools enriched the English language (respectable words like ‘mob’ and ‘(omni)bus’ probably started out as student witticisms) Wodehousian

On North American campuses where life is more highly ritualised, with initiation ceremonies, sorority and fraternity-house customs, popularity contests and the rest, there is a vast and ever-changing vocabulary of status

It’s interesting to compare the way the two nationalities talk about the same staples of student existence; for instance ‘aardvark’ in Britain is hard work, while in the US ‘aardvarking’ is engaging in sexual fumbling; ‘we’d better leave’ is rendered as ‘Let’s bail’ or Let’s book’ in the US, ‘Let’s chip’ or ‘Let’s duss’ over here. Boring misfits -the butt of witticisms on both continents are known as ‘lorgs’ in the US, ‘nargs’ in the UK, while an attractive American male is is a ‘jordan’, his British equivalent a ‘smacker’. It used to be that we imported our more fashionable terms from the US – ‘groovy’, far-out’ and ‘fuzz’ in the Sixties, and ‘nerd’, ‘wimp’ and ‘geek’ a decade later, for instance, but a large proportion of today’s vocabulary comes from Black British and Caribbean speech; ‘mampy’ and ‘butters’ (ugly), ‘roasting’ (sexually frustrated) and ‘bruck’ (ruined) are among the best known.

Home-grown rhyming slang is also alive and well and new examples are being coined all the time.’Claire Rayners’ are trainers, often worn with a pair of Steve McQueens, If a piece of work is too easy it’s a ‘Glen’ (-Hoddle; a doddle)’, but perhaps in any case you don’t give a Kate Moss. If you want to borrow a ten-pound note to buy some ‘Richard’ (Gere-beer), it’s cooler to demand an Ayrton (Senna) or a Pavarotti (tenor – get it?), but promise to return it ‘Christian Slater’ and not too ‘Terry Waite’.

Some of the buzzwords and catchphrases used by British students are peculiar to just one university or college, others are invented and swapped among micro-groups made up of just a handful of friends, but there is another large core of expressions which are used and understood with minor variations right across the country. At King’s College London, students have been donating examples of their current argot for the last three years to a research project that will eventually yield a new dictionary of ‘youthspeak’

It’s often assumed that slang is something ephemeral, but it isn’t as simple as that:
words do come in and out of fashion, particularly the words that bestow approval, the successors to yesteryear’s ‘fab’, ‘ace’, ‘brill’ are ‘wick’, ‘dare’, and ‘dope’, but many are recycled and some oldies -‘cool’, ‘sorted’ and ‘shag’ are examples – seem to linger year after year. One remarkable feature is the number of words that mean the same thing: there are hundreds of words for drunk, including ‘gurning’, ‘wazzed’, ‘mashup’, ‘ratted’, ‘faced’, scores to denote idiots (‘chief’, ‘choad’, ‘hole’, ‘smurf’), and dozens of synonyms for exciting, such as ‘kicking’, ‘slamming’ ‘blamming’ and ‘storming’.

The picture of student life that emerges from the King’s survey is a happy disregard for work (almost no slang refers to books, lectures or libraries), and a very pronounced dedication to all things hedonistic.

To boost the confidence of the uninitiated, here is a shortlist of current expressions, culled from the study at King’s and donations from students at several other institutions in the Southeast. Understand them – but stop and think before you drop them into the conversation; there’s nothing more shame-making than a newcomer desperately trying to be hip. And the wrong word in the wrong place can result either in roars of derision or a hideous strained silence – as you mumble “I’ll get my coat.”

 A QUICK GUIDE FOR THE UNINITIATED

Arm candy…a fellow student borrowed as an escort for a social function

Catalogue man….an unfashionable, Alan Partridge-style male

Cheesy, grievous, rank…awful

Chirpsing…flirting or chatting up

Gazing…relaxing

Jawache, grab, snork…to kiss

Oof…a stunningly attractive female

Pants…disappointing or unlucky

Pukka, rated…excellent

Shtenkie…disgusting

Mullered, spannered, twatted…the worse for wear after drinking

Throw a bennie…become enraged or lose control

Tough, uggers…extremely unattractive

Trust, squids, bollers…money

Vamping, flexing…showing off

This article first appeared in the GUARDIAN newspaper in September 2000

 

 

READ MY LIPS – a Catchphrase is forever

Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but primarily by catchwords.

– Robert Louis Stevenson 

Image result for old catchphrases

In the end, Mr. Trump’s simple promise to ‘Make America Great Again,’ a catchphrase Mrs. Clinton dismissed as a vow to return to a racist past already long disappeared, would draw enough white Americans to the polls to make up for his low minority support.

– Amy Chozick, New York Times, November 9, 2016

 

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A poll of 2000 representative adult citizens has just revealed, according to surrounding publicity, the British public’s fifty favourite catchphrases. I was asked to comment on the survey and its findings and have expanded on those first thoughts here…

  1. Linguists describe the catchphrase as a ‘pre-formed lexical unit’, a component of the lexical repertoire shared by individual speakers and wider social groups. A catchphrase is ‘disseminated’ – spread – by repeated media usage and by word of mouth repetition.
  2. A catchphrase is typically a sequence of several words which works in memory and in conversation as a single unit. It triggers recognition because it is used repeatedly across society and this recognition in turn triggers the pleasure of sharing a cultural allusion with other people.
  3. Catchphrases, like proverbs, slogans or clichés (not to mention adages, maxims, platitudes, sayings and mottos), work because they encode ideas that are wise or funny or inspiring – sometimes all three at once. They also work well in interactions because they are information shortcuts or emotional prompts that can be slipped into conversations instead of having to explain interesting or complex ideas at length. In the digital and visual sphere hashtags and memes share many of the catchphrase’s attributes.
  4. A catchphrase such as ‘I don’t believe it!’ expresses a mix of exasperation, world-weary resignation and fatalistic humour that will be familiar from many people’s personal experience. ‘Don’t panic!’ is a piece of urgent advice that fits almost all of the traumas that life inflicts upon us. (The same words were memorably used in the cult TV series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’)
  5. The psychology of using a catchphrase is similar to that of telling a joke or repeating a famous quote: it not only conveys an opinion or information but forms a social bond of intimacy between the user and whoever they are talking to.
  6. Many catchphrases are associated with a particular performer, celebrity or public figure and so have a double impact in evoking that person’s trademark persona and attributes as well as the ideas they originally expressed. Catchphrases from much-loved shows lodge in the listener’s mind and stay with them as pleasurable memories to replay over and over again.
  7. Some catchphrases – ‘it is what it is’, for example, mimic a philosopher or sage expressing universal truths in simple language. The repetition used drives home the idea and its finality is effective in closing down a discussion – but at the same time this kind of catchphrase (like its abrupt synonym ‘end of’) can irritate the hearer if it is thought to be meaningless or stating the obvious or falsely affecting profundity. ‘Simples’, on the other hand is inoffensive and works especially well because it is itself as simple as it can be, as well as teasingly funny and associated with a lovable, if fictionalised and Russian-accented creature.
  8. Catchphrases derive their power from compressing quite complex ideas into short sequences and reinforce their power by employing unexpected juxtapositions and by using striking or clever combinations of sound (‘phonaesthetics’ or ‘sound symbolism’) that work just as in poetry or literature to arouse feelings in the listener. A very short expression such as ‘beermunch’ (the product name associated with the poll promotion in question) brings two already very familiar words together for the first time and combines two short, sharp contrasting sounds, sounds that for many will evoke the act of imbibing a stimulating liquid and the act of ‘chomping’ on delicious snack food.
  9. Catchphrases are a key component of popular culture as they connect the world of entertainment and consumption with the everyday concerns of real people – their feelings and experiences, their shared pleasures and their struggles and frustrations, and especially their triumphs over adversity.
  10. Some catchphrases (like buzzwords, linguists call these ‘vogue terms) quickly fall out of use or soon begin to sound dated and embarrassing. What is notable in the latest list, however, is how many of the expressions chosen are decades old and still in favour. It seems that certain phrases reverberate across generations, becoming part of the shared vocabulary of family members and neighbours (more technically ‘familect’).

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So here are…

 THE NATION’S TOP 50 CATCHPHRASES – as of September 2019 

  1. I don’t believe it! – Victor Meldrew
  2. Simples – Compare the Market
  3. Don’t panic! – Lance-Corporal Jones/Dad’s Army
  4. Lovely jubbly – Del Boy/Only Fools and Horses
  5. I had a cunning plan! – Tony Robinson / Blackadder
  6. To me, to you – Chuckle Brothers
  7. I’ll be back – Arnold Schwarzenegger / Terminator 2
  8. Nice to see you – to see you nice – Bruce Forsyth
  9. Only me! – Harry Enfield
  10. Rodney, you plonker! Del Boy/Only Fools and Horses
  11. Cheeky Nando’s
  12. How YOU doin’? Joey from FRIENDS
  13. Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once – ‘Allo ‘Allo
  14. Computer says no – Little Britain
  15. Garlic bread! – Peter Kay
  16. Should’ve gone to Specsavers – Specsavers
  17. D’oh! – Homer Simpson
  18. Am I bovvered? Catherine Tate
  19. The name’s Bond… James Bond – James Bond
  20. Beam me up, Scotty – Star Trek
  21. It is what it is – Love Island
  22. Aha! – I’m Alan Partridge
  23. What’s occurring? – Gavin and Stacey
  24. I’ve started so I’ll finish – Mastermind presenter
  25. It’s goodnight from me, and it’s goodnight from him – The Two Ronnies
  26. I’m free! – Mr Humphries/Are You Being Served
  27. Ooh Betty – Frank Spencer
  28. You dirty old man! – Steptoe and Son
  29. Lads lads lads – and everybody! – Ladbrokes
  30. Exterminate! – Dalek
  31. Live Long and Prosper – Star Trek
  32. We’re going out-out – Mickey Flanagan
  33. I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse – The Godfather
  34. Have a break, have a Kit Kat – Kit Kat
  35. Scorchio! – The Fast Show
  36. Because I’m worth it – L’Oreal
  37. Bazinga! – The Big Bang Theory
  38. It’s good, but it’s not right – Roy Walker/Catchphrase
  39. Who loves ya, baby! – Kojak
  40. I ain’t getting’ on no plane! – Mr T/The A Team
  41. I’m Lovin’ It – McDonald’s
  42. Shut that door – Larry Grayson
  43. Smokin’! – Jim Carrey – The Mask
  44. On that bombshell… – Jeremy Clarkson / Top Gear
  45. You are the weakest link – goodbye! – Anne Robinson / The Weakest Link
  46. You’ll like this – not a lot – Paul Daniels
  47. …Which was nice – The Fast Show
  48. No likey, no lighty! – Take Me Out
  49. Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis? – Diff’rent Strokes
  50. Giggity – Quagmire / Family Guy

Image result for old catchphrases

And here is how the poll results were relayed to a waiting public…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7520653/I-dont-believe-Victor-Meldrews-catchphrase-voted-nations-favourite-time.html

 

 Grumpy Victor Meldrew's catchphrase topped the list