What happened to "volatility" ?

I found 2008 to be a very volatile year.

Cheers,
Brent.

Obamania

Out of curiosity, was it the Daily Show which first popularised the term? I remember they did a sketch on it back in early January 2007.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=81465&title=obamania

Actually, looking back on that video, it's amazing how many of the FOX/neocon smears in Obama were already in place. Of course,…

I don't want to knock the list in any way, but seeing it in one block like that really brings home what a depressing year it's (largely) been.

You gotta rofflenui not to cryenui.

So, the list. Thoughts?

I think it's "Labour lite".

If you're wanting to get rid of some, my suggestion for that would be "Going forward" (apologies to whomever proposed it). It seems pretty generic, not really 2008 etc. That could obviously be recognised with voting (i.e. few will vote for it),…

So, the list. Thoughts? Bear in mind that I'm probably looking to take words out than add them at…

wonder if I should make a drinking game out of its many occurrences

Not bad judging criteria.. :)

What will happen, is that people will spell their own names in polystyrene, take photos of it, post it on livejournal, and call it a poly-name-meme.

like meme banned

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasabicube/3110367544/

no extras just the plain ole obama

although i am extremely fond of obamarama

I think 'urgency' might make for a good late entrant.

I was just thinking the same thing a couple of nights ago. 'Urgency' surely should be in there somewhere. I'd plump for 'volatility' as well.

volatility

"the stock market is showing signs of volatility..."

"the price of milk is showing signs of volatility..."

"the price of oil is showing signs of volatility..."

And in what year would "word" have been the word of the year?

I shall refer you to Genesis 1:1. (Still during the Peter Gabriel years, then.)

u haz my word

(blame my nephew I am a sockpuppet at this moment aaaa

Is it a noun ("we had a right old rofflenui at that one") or a verb? If so,does it inflect for…

Et tu, Brute?

Well, that was my original vote. It's not as if I pretended to switch factions while secretly plotting to restore the republic.

And, for what it's worth, I'm also in favour of the rofflenui spelling.

Et tu, Brute?

My mum will be dead proud. :)

She should be. And, for what it's worth, I'm also in favour of the rofflenui spelling.

My mum will be dead proud. :)

Robbery will be along shortly to encourage you to take up your copyrights Sacha.

. . . a laugh you could really wrap your mouth around.

Or, to borrow the title of an old album by Pete Brown and His Battered Ornaments, A Meal You Can Shake Hands with in the Dark.

"rofflenui" sounds somehow meatier, like a laugh you could really wrap your mouth around.

Yep, it's more oral rather than on-screen. I don't really mind.

Rofflenui / Roflnui

Excuse my jumping in, but I prefer the first. "Roflnui" sounds a bit too clipped – "rofflenui" sounds somehow meatier, like a laugh you could really wrap your mouth around. It's only two extra letters after all.

Enough said, what does Keri think?

just going begging

Writing about sport does seem to produce a rich lode of unique expressions. Which ones have come into their own this year?

a heartbeat away from residency

Sounds like the waiting room at teh immigration service..

Rofflenui / Roflnui

Islander, how do you prefer to spell it, given that it seems you may be…

a heartbeat away from X

Random topic mashup...

Google Street View: a heartbeat away from residency?

Once we get the monkey off our backs in a WC . . .

just going begging.

Unhinged by her naked envy of an award Duder had received, Brooke shamelessly plugged her own largely unread work, while painting herself as the victim (again) of a PC conspiracy.

Kind of reinforces my distrusts of Mac lovers.

I realise our small arc of the world means diddlysquat elsewhere so rofflenui may stay within our electronic environment – but the word/concept is a real goodie and I suspect, will…

"Amy" Brooke used to be known as Agnes-Mary Brooke: I have a kind of mild hatred for her because of an extremely ill-informed review she once committed of one of my books, and an on-going – I think she thought of it as a vendetta – I thought…

My failed attempt to coin a phrase was 'Tinkerblogger', defined as the author of a blog who believes that by writing about something with great frequency or conviction they will cause it to be true.

I call that sort of thing auto-cranial-proctology but for some reason that term's never caught…

My failed attempt to coin a phrase was 'Tinkerblogger', defined as the author of a blog who believes that by writing about something with great frequency or conviction they will cause it to be true.
See The Standard's coverage of the NZ election or (much funnier) NoMinister on the US…

It would be cool to hatch a word, give it a press release, and send it off into the wild, eh?

I reckon. "Is that somewhere near Wankernui?" replied one wag.

Got the brackets wrong on the Ironic Times link. Meant to click preview but it posted instead.

Just for reference, link should have been www.ironictimes.com

You know, as much as I love rofflenui, I'm really reluctant to support it as the Word of the Year, simply because – according to Google – it's never been used outside of PA System.

So is it the Public Address "Word of the Year," or the Public Address Word…

What were they thinking?

Catholic school SADD

See The Standard's coverage of the NZ election or (much funnier) [[http://nominister.blogspot.com/2008/09/naughty-boy.html | NoMinister…

Especially when you compare it to previous years' high-voted words – unbundled, peow peow, truthiness,…

So was Hitler. By which I mean, it's not a quality per se.

I dunno. The goose-stepping that lots of the people are doing on that post, kinda funny. I can see John Cleese doing it now. "Your factual interjections are not welcome! Not welcome I tell you! Schnell!"

Flip-flop.

(Although I reserve the right to change my stance on this.)

And you're just being patronising, Danielle.

Oh FFS. (That's my acronym of the year by a country mile.) I wasn't, but whatever.

I vote for the 'roflnui' spelling also, for whatever that's worth. 'Roff le Nui'. Heh.

If it's all the same to Sacha the originator, I'm leaning towards the former.

Not just because of ennui, but also because I'm pretty sure Roff le Nui was a bandmate of [[http://www.geocities.com/SecretMysteryChick/russleroq.html|Russ…

It's too self-evident an argument to feel the need to win: there is no meaningful equivalence between Key being elected in New Zealand (did anyone, anywhere regard his Jewish heritage as an issue?) and the…

"The Summer Sounds Symposium is simply food for a starving mind"

Mike King

Oh dear. Yeah right.

Really, try as I may I can't buy the token right-wing intellectual thing. Every bloody one of them gives the impression of playing up to some kind of equal-time, striving-for-"balance", affirmative-action program.

Yes. Perhaps the 'first black president' is getting old, but it is at the very least a bit more relevant and a bit more accurate.

Let's not prance around: it's entirely accurate, and enormously relevant, and anybody who says different either lacks good faith or is a complete moron. If…

On the plus side, she's energetic and enterprising.

So was Hitler. By which I mean, it's not a quality per se.

Also, it's a bit of a stretch, by most definitions of ethnicity to call Key "ethnically Jewish". Statistics New Zealand have a long and…

Hoho. I just re-read the comments to that. One of the people debating with you writes for, er, Investigate.
http://www.amybrooke.co.nz/about.php
.

On the plus side, she's energetic and enterprising. Her Sounds Symposium is a kind of Foo Camp for right-wingers.

On the minus side, I know people who've been to…

Wow... and I'm the weirdo in this conversation?

In so many words, yes.

Oh dear God.

Don't take my name in vain, darling. We are not amused.

Craig, if John Key had been running for President of the United States you might have a point.

*sigh* Thanks for tuning in, Phillip. Joe Lieberman (who happens to be an orthodox Jew) was on a…

And when did word of the year become phrase of the year?

And how on earth did we end up talking about what black means..

If you were studying the effect of ethnicity in interaction, you might consider
1. Person A's apparent ethnicity (what other people see)
2. Person A's ethnic identity (self-identity, probably manifested in behaviour)
3. Relevance of ethnicity to the context.

Let's fit…

a heartbeat away from X

YES. Let's say a heartbeat away from rofflenui and be done with it.

a heartbeat away from X

And anti-Semitism is a thing of the past?

You're just being wilfully obtuse now, Craig. You remember which country we're talking about, right? The United States, with the slavery and the Jim Crow and the civil rights movement and Dr King and whatnot? My Dad grew up in a segregated…

1. The glass is half full.
2. The glass is half empty.
3. Craig's "just cause the water in the glass has finally got some colour in it for the first time, we shouldn't call it black."

Up to you which one you…

Here in NZ, anti-semitism has never been much of an issue, which is why no-one bothered talking about John's Jewishness during…

Pardon me if I call bullshit right back at you.

Oh dear God.

John Key being of Jewish descent isn't the same thing at all. Context, history... I'm calling 'false equivalence' here.

And anti-Semitism is a thing of the past? And how soon we forget – a mere eight years ago – when there was much educated hand-wringing about whether America was ready…

reductive labels being put on women because of what they look like

Like... what? I mean, I *am* a woman. That's not all I am, but describing me as a woman…

Well, yes it is.

Good then.

Yes, Craig, it's exactly the same thing.

Well, yes it is. If you've actually got to put racial or religious labels on people, it does help if they're accurate, doesn't it?

And John Key is New Zealand's third head of government of Jewish descent, and I'd sure be wondering WTF was going on if that label appeared in every news report about him.

Yes, Craig, it's exactly the same thing.

He's the first black president and the forty-fourth white president. I fail to see the semantic difficulty here.

And John Key is New Zealand's third head of government of Jewish descent, and I'd sure be wondering WTF was going on if that label appeared in every news report about him.…

Isn't it one of the good things about NZ that the legal basis for being a Maori is simply considering yourself to be one? It seems a lot better than getting out the calipers and measuring skulls.

Well, yes... but it's going to be a wonderful day when slapping racial…

One of the people debating with you writes for, er, Investigate.

As she's quite entitled to of course. And let's say I'm not surprised, given the caliber of her comments.

Doubt there's a musical in Peter Davis's life though.

Heh!

He's the first black president and the forty-fourth white president. I fail to see the semantic difficulty here.

Bravissimo!

New Zealand has a complicated and obscure voting system (for example, four parliamentary seats are reserved for Maoris, despite the fact few pure-blood Maoris still exist).

Which also made me think, thank the stars we don't actually…

Kiwis have a predilection for inspecting every strand of DNA to determine someone's Maoriness
Do they? I have formed a strong impression of the opposite.

Isn't it one of the good things about NZ that the legal basis for being a Maori is simply considering yourself to be one? It…

Also, it's mainly the "not-black" epithet that bugs me. The Americans that have expressed this view seem to infuse it with racist overtones.

Good call, Heather. Colin Powell would be another example, by virtue of his Jamaican parents, of the "not-black" (i.e. not descended from enslaved Africans) black person, who…

Americans that have expressed this view seem to infuse it with racist overtones.

Wit, racist overtones is wrong... just that their stances seem to be nothing to do with defending the rights of mixed-race people.

You really want to try schooling me about the galaxy of "weird" miscegenation stirs up across the board?

Heavens no, not schooling (I've put that behind me), just agreeing with the others that your advanced critical race theory doesn't mesh easily with the conventional, quotidian, widely-accepted narratives of race according…

I personally find it rather "belittling" to see the kind of denial in play when people of mixed-race are shoved back in the closet

I understand, and I totally agree. I've no doubt that mixed-race individuals have likely had an even worse deal throughout America's history and deserve the same…

What the hell is his mother — some high yellow negress "passing" for white?

I understand your point (any identity-category terminology is a right old inaccurate bugbear), I just think it misses the point. Would you feel happier saying that Obama is the first…

And what I find weird is being told after all these years that I don't "look Maori" or "look gay" or whatever.

Craig: If it's any consolation, I always assumed you were Maori, but I was quite surprised when you came out as a National supporter.

Do they? I have formed a strong impression of the opposite.

I don't really mean that in a dictatorial fashion – just in my experience, there are kiwis that are overtly maori (either by looks, accent, or social interactions), those that claim to be maori but don't "seem" it, those…

Plus: who, under Craig's scheme, would qualify as "black"?

Why do I not even want to go there?

(Craig, I find your 'thing' about this kind of weird... it's not as if anyone is out there denying that his mother is white.)

Danielle: *sigh* I guess I could respond that some people find it rather "weird" how feminists have a "thing" about reductive labels being put on women…

Then again, you'd find pockets of people who would hold fast to the notion that he is not strictly African-American in the classic sense, not being descended from enslaved people.

Which is also interesting, given that he has two parents, one African, one American. Probably the term is more appropriate…

Kiwis have a predilection for inspecting every strand of DNA to determine someone's Maoriness

Do they? I have formed a strong impression of the opposite.

Blunder.

As in Obama damning The Surge with the faint praise as a "tactical adjustment to a stategic blunder." It just makes for a devastating description...

Plus: who, under Craig's scheme, would qualify as "black"?

That said, the category of mixed race/ biracial/ multiracial…

There is also, ultimately, an issue about appearance,...The way people treat you when they first meet you is largely based on how you look.

I concur. And from what I gather, race in the US is quite a different beast to what it is in NZ.

I think people that…

we're talking ethnicity, not race

Ding ding ding! A winner.

(Craig, I find your 'thing' about this kind of weird... it's not as if anyone is out there denying that his mother is white.)

"first black President"

Shortly thereafter I saw an improv scene where someone in the audience asked for a black master and a white slave. Punchline being, "Oh yeah? Well one day this nation will elect a President that's half white!"

While your point is worth considering – the default label falling…

Mavericky

Maverickiness

Don't you mean snuggering?

Snure.

And could I nominate — as an object lesson in what isn't said speaking volumes — the description of Barack Obama as America's "first black President". What the hell is his mother — some high yellow negress "passing" for white? Or is miscegenation the love…

Tony Ryall's prescription for waiting lists.

Virginia Super Slims Light cigarettes

I wonder how many words you have to put before the word 'cigarette' to make people forget that it's actually still never going to be good for you?

Helen Clark supposedly "washing her hands of Winston Peters"

Green-washing – the show of being 'green' without substance

Pink-washing – what were Philip Morris (USA) thinking in announcing that their Virginia Super Slims Light cigarettes would come in pink packages

Defnlee

Deteriating

Vunrable

More a vote for a word I don't want to hear any more:
"Gutted"

Isn't Gutted the flipside of Awesome? While it might not have trickled down from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, both words convey a sense of extreme slack-jawed emotion.

"Gutted"

Seems to pop up frequently in news articles when people are asked how they feel. "Absolutely" meaningless.

Surely "issues".

Perhaps this could be combined with the other suggested Keyisms and be modified to "isshues".

Same goes for "shtrength", "shtudents", "shtabbed in the back"...

And I think I heard John Key saying New Zeend the other day.

Great. If Mark Taylor becomes PM across the ditch, we could forge an alliance with Straya.

And I think I heard John Key saying New Zeend…

Not to be confused with Rofflennui

Rolling on the floor laughing, contemplating the vacuity of human life?

That sounds right.

Not to be confused with Rofflennui

Rolling on the floor laughing, contemplating the vacuity of human life?

One candidate for Word of the Year has to be John Key's opening to just about evrything he says: "well look"

While we're talking about conversational noises...

Apparently he was Prime Ministerial at the press conference about the air crash, but he didn't quite achieve grave formality with his opening...

So, it…

(Did you know that 'Bette Davis Eyes' was co-written by Jackie DeShannon? I just learned that!)

And previewing 2009 I fear we will hear a lot about 'Rodney the razor' and the NACT.

'Tranzrail eyes'

I don't know if it can aspire to word of the year, but I'm gonna start using it at every possible occasion.

'He gets that Tranzrail look in his eyes and you just know he is hiding something' (Audrey Young NZH blog 15 October 2008)

Sam, that one was most certainly mine (and I think Giovanni found the right reference – ta), although it couldn't have been born without the community of skillful wordplay here that constantly reminds me how enjoyable language can be and how great a taonga it is.

Heh, my shaky memory...…

Well, look, I completely agree with you there. Substitute an "um" and the meaning stays the same!

In conversation, I quite often use "um" as a place holder while looking for a more seemly version of are you high or just congenitally stupid? The phatic expression does have its uses.

'view all posts by [X]' function

Great idea for visitors as well as admins. I for one would like being able to skip back through a person's postings, especially when coming in to a conversation that has been going for a while. Someone reminded me yesterday that usenet offered something…

Sam, that one was most certainly mine (and I think Giovanni found the right reference – ta), although it couldn't have been born without the community of skillful wordplay here that constantly reminds me how enjoyable language can be and how…

Sacha might correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he came up with it in in this comment.

Nope, definitely belongs to Danielle, who coined it in a reply to someone's amusing post related to things Maori, quite a few months back. I've Googled and sitesearched all variants but…

Also, do we have a definition for rofflenui? Something like "big laughs"? I tried googling it, but it lead me only to this very thread and nowhere else! Surely it can be antedated to earlier than the start of this thread...

Sacha might correct me if I'm wrong, but I…

Overvalued. It implies we know the value.
Package.…

John Key was saying it a lot during the campaign. Tony Veitch used it during his media statement. It was then played and replayed and the term got maximum exposure.

Where did it come from and why did it take off the way it did?

At least "to…

3. lipstick on a pig

The animal Palin compared herself to was a pit bull!

One candidate for Word of the Year has to be John Key's opening to just about evrything he says: "well look"

Well, look, I completely agree with you there. Substitute an "um" and the meaning…

I'm sick of the MSM bringing up this old chestnut year after year after year. It's lazy and pointless.

They seem quite happy to stoke the small-minded suburban mediocrity/Kath-&-Kim-ism that they purportedly bemoan is driving away our "best & brightest". And no, Liz "f--- you NZ Idol" Shaw doesn't count.

I think…

More to the point, will any of us live to hear it?

If an album comes out in twenty years' time, and nobody cares enough to listen, does it make a sound?

GnR's next album is apparently in the works already, but they have to knock off their soundtrack for…

My pick for most annoying new use of a word.

Why do we have discussions 'around' subjects now instead of discussions 'about' stuff? Right up there with 'issues', especially when combined to form 'issues around [insert subject here]'.

I'm guessing that those who repeatedly brandish those two words have never lived in the UK...

Or Singapore for that matter:

"If Singapore is a nanny state, then I am proud to have fostered one." – Lee Kuan Yew

What'll be Axl Rose's follow up album? "Singaporean Democracy" methinks?

It has to be "like"--the teenagers' comma, fullstop and general all-round fill-in word.

Like has been expanding its scope for rather longer than that!
The Scottish have been using it since the 1700s at the end of sentences, like. Linguists suggest that it has acquired a new grammatical function with…

Usually used after a witty remark, the raising of a hands to perform a High Five, without the physical clapping of the hands.

"An' she like said like that I was like you know like being like silly!"

and in a Billy Joel "we didn't start the fire" stylee:
Palin/Obama/Veitch/credit crunch
Beijing/iphone/twitter/we need a change/
nanny state/Noelle etc

We mustn't forget 'hockey mom'...

We'll remember. Just as we remember Dan "potatoe" Quayle.

I guess not. In which case, I will go for "rofflenui."

Shout "rofflenui" in a crowded room
Liquidity's not there.

our late winter and early spring months would have been so much less enjoyable without her...

(1) NO
(2)TRUST

Obamania – word of the year.

Going forward – this insipid yet repellent (if such a combination exists) phrase plays no part in my plans going forward.

BTW: does anyone else become irascible on hearing the phrase "PC gone mad"? Surely a bigger…