Hard News: The Public Address Word of the Year 2010
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So if one of you is the other’s alibi for a heinous crime…?
I think the word you are looking for is when, not if.
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can you provide a pronunciation guide please?
I definitely hear it with "a" as in "hat", but there's no definitive version.
I think it was Emma who suggested it goes best when preceded by the Batman theme: "Duhnuh duhnuh duhnuh duhnuh Duhnuh duhnuh duhnuh duhnuh ... Twatock!"
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Tom Beard, in reply to
it was coined by one of our own
After I used "twatcock" and some others repeated it, I googled to check, and there have been instances of its use before, so I can't quite claim neological rights. However, I don't think it's ever achieved such sustained and resonant use as on PAS and now Twitter, and it never had the ideal combination of signifier and signified until it was used to describe P**l H***y.
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They said what about Perl Healy?
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adPro, in reply to
Liquefornication - People wanking on about liquefaction.
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So if one of you is the other's alibi for a heinous crime...?
Um... could you define "heinous"?
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Given that ‘twatcock’ is going to walk it, perhaps we should just stick it out of the way over in the corner and focus on the fight for second place.
My leftfield nomination is ’HoSteria!!!!!’, coined by our gracious host in the wake of the front page of the first HoS after the earthquake. For me, it neatly encapsulates that paper’s editorial line on….more or less anything and everything, really.
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Tom Beard, in reply to
HoSteria could also work for moral panics over skirt lengths at Newlands College. #slutskirt
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"Twatock"? Is there a word to describe the acute embarrassment that comes from misspelling one's own word?
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James Butler, in reply to
I have always heard "twatcock" to rhyme with "hot rock", but "twatock" clearly rhymes with "mattock" (a sadly underused word itself).
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Twatcock Ness Monster.
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'Nudity Clauses'
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My intended entry for Word of the Year was going to be cowtoe, which was a mash of kowtow and camel toe. What with the Nats' naked simpering to Warner Brothers/ Hillary Clinton/ Allan Hubbard, etc. it seemed apt. However, my vote goes to twatcock.
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Jolisa, in reply to
Tom, I just figured you were getting a jump on the eventual pronunciation shift. Just as "bloody" was once "by Our Lady," so too twatcock => twattock, over time.
(I've been pronouncing it with two similar vowel sounds and enjoying the assonance, as well as the glottal stop in the middle. Will experiment with rhyming it with hat-block, but new habits die hard).
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I've recently come across "Whoroscope", pronounced as you would around Whanganui, i.e. with the "Wh" as "hhhwa" as in an old-fashioned English "hhhwat" for "what?".
Alternatively you can say "hooo-roscope.
So, it's NOT whore-o-scope!
The word describes the viewing of one's life chances as associated with when your day of birth falls relative to the original transmission of episodes of Doctor Who. (People born before 23rd November 1963 will all have the same significance attached to their day of birth and therefore their subsequent lives.)
It is not to be confused with exactly the same word used by Samuel Beckett in 1930 as the title of poem. That IS "whore-o-scope", I bet!
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"Transparency" = what you can't see.
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The problem is, I'm struggling to remember events and phrases from the beginning of the year. 'Bailout' should be up there though. "In time for the world cup" was still being chucked about until recently. Folk tend to nominate/vote for events of recent relevance. It's a bit like all those 'top albums of the last 50 years' polls. (Speaking of folk, Obama has busted that one out a fair bit of late).
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Sacha, in reply to
I have always heard "twatcock" to rhyme with "hot rock"
Same - the alternative just doesn't flow the same, to my ears
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Sacha, in reply to
"bloody" was once "by Our Lady"
Didn't know the Strayans had been messin with the Queen's English for quite so long..
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Jolisa, in reply to
Shakespeare himself was Australian, yo.
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"vajazzling"
naahhhh. "Twatcock"
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IMNSHO "twatcock" and "#eqnz" are the only contenders - but which to choose!?
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Jolisa, in reply to
Arguably, a twatcock comes pre-vajazzled.
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I'm thinking outside the square in that the WOTY isn't a word in itself, but the bit that came before so many of them: #eqnz, #pikeriver, #outrageousfortune, #allwhites.
To me it felt like the year when twitter hashtags became part of the parlance, even for those of us who don't really use the thing.
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I also nominate twatcock because 1) it was coined by one of our own 2) it is a multipurpose word suited to all situations and occasions 3) I am innately scatalogical.
I'm feeling a bit icky at the thought of a scatological twatcocks - I mean, where have they been!!!
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