Word of the Year 2007
175 Responses
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[I know this has an obscure technical meaning, but I think this is much better]
Encrapt (v): convert ordinary language into meaningless technical (legal, ICT, psychological etc.) babble. Generally used by the public sector to ensure its actions are indecipherable, but sometimes used for political spin, public relations and so on. [Encraption, encrapted, encraptable].
"We wrote a simple explanation of the new research loans policy, and have fully encrapted it for release so the public will not notice it enables us to divert funds to failing community projects."
"The email was released under the FOI Act, but fortunately it was fully encrapted do they didn't notice the authorization for the First Class tickets."
"Make sure you encrapt the information about how the DRM works in the new O/S so that only a real geek will read the detail. At least that way it will only be a non-entity at in some hole at the end of the world who will make any noise, and we might get away with it."
"Make sure the Executive Summary is encrapted, but not the main document. The journalists never bother with the detail, so we can always use that bit to get ourselves off the hook if people say they weren't warned."
Sometimes encraption can backfire:
"That briefing has to be encrapted before we give it to POTUS or he'll think we really are saying Iraq is a terrorist threat. Make sure it's so impenetrable that even someone with an IQ lower than their shoe size realizes there's no real evidence".
http://serendipitousphilosophy.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
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demagogracy.
It sort of sums up all the yelling and screaming over the Electoral Finance Bill
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+1 for Te Qaeda
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demagogracy.
It sort of sums up all the yelling and screaming over the Electoral Finance Bill
Ooh. That is clever.
Anyway, carry on discussing and I'll pull together a list of finalists and organise a vote on Survey Monkey.
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I'm overwhelmed by the sheer nearmissedness of the year.
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My votes for list of finalists:
Coskriedictory (funny how so much lobbying on behalf of one set of "human rights" tends to be at the expense of another -- a cruder and far less clever example than David's originals)
Robust (funny how this is always the adjective du jour to describe the coming changes and convince us that the latest unbelievable cock-up won't happen again)
Encrapt (Boss (aside to secretary): Christ, make sure you encrapt that in the minutes)
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I think we need two categories - One for the word that really hits the zeitgeist of the year 2007; and one for the word wore out its welcome in the past year.
Well, for category B, I'd like to nominate iconic. I am sick and bloody tired of hearing lazy hacks describing something (or worse, some__one__)as "iconic" when they simply mean "well-known" or "popular" or even "quite nice".
Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!
</rant>
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Andy....
Ahh....good to see someone else involuntarily screams at the TV whenever they hear the word 'icon' or 'iconic'.
It definitely head my list of terms against the wall when the linguisitic revolution comes.
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My next vote for WOTY would have to be proportion - as in "all out of proportion".
Pick a news story this year, any news story, and then try and justify it as all being perfectly reasonably portrayed:
*World Cup Rugby - stench of death on the battlefield
*That cup thing in Spain - does anyone with a nett worth of less than a billion bucks give a rats ass (except those of you with a long history of yacht racing in the family - you know who you are)
*Terrorism - yeah, that was some reasonable and rational discussion
*The end of Democracy and Free Speech - see terrorism -
*That cup thing in Spain - does anyone with a nett worth of less than a billion bucks give a rats ass (except those of you with a long history of yacht racing in the family - you know who you are)
Well, no. It was important to those peoples' daddies, and those people are glad that their daddies died before they could see the upshot of all that funding and all that planning. In fact, those people are now convinced that we will never have the Cup again, but that the Valencia peoples should keep on having it over there, because after all, one's daddies ashes (some of them anyway) are sprinkled on that particular race start line. Otherwise those peoples don't really give a crap about the stupid thing. See, now, that's proportion.
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Well the word here in 'stralia is "rudderless" if you were one of the losers and "two-thousand-and-Kevin" if you weren't.
I'll make a personal bid for "the prospect of wasting valuable free time with mundane and questionable activities: administrivia"
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My vote's for encrapt, but I am also underwhelmed by the costradictory nature of carboncred, especially when it's so Gorey.
Other contenders for me would be historic, as in "historic allegations" - yes they were historic but I think they meant historical. I've always liked "Hystorical" (getting all worked up about things in the past), but its derogatory connotations should NOT be applied to Ms Wallace et al, IMO.
AND for the "rock bottom" award : "National Grooving Into The Future." It was this year wasn't it? I'm still gagging.
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Actually, I also suggest "Jaffanese" coz anime, Manga, geita, lolly goth, J-pop, J-hop etc seem to have gone from fringe (as in long black) to fashion among the Auckland teens this year.
And G-mo, coz hybrid is the only way.
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Sue,
Craft2.0
it's a word it's an event it's a website
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As a self-professed linguistic functionalist I'm ashamed to say that I hate "versed" too, but then I still cringe at "impacted" when used in relation to anything other than teeth. Groan. Just gettin old.
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sub-prime
...if you're looking for a word that sums up '07 that'll still be handy in '08.
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Yep, I think Garth's got it. Hard to beat sub-prime.
It is oxymoronic, jargonesque, represents our profound euphemismism and has surprising ubiquitiousness. What it lacks in superfluous syllables it makes up for in iconicism.
Yay Garth.
Su-prime! (Sub-prime: Ant. su-prime {supreme with a kiwi accent}).
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Also has a sublime quality, and begs sub-crime/subcriminal etc.
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Yeah, sub-prime gets my vote as well.
It's a versatile term, a useful metaphor,, and it also stands as a symbol of unending human folly.
I mean, who would have thought lending money to people who were bad credit risks would be so, umm, risky?
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One word that's been making me grind my teeth is "refute", used in the sense of "repudiate" or "deny" rather than "disprove."
I'm not sure if that's my nomination though. When do nominations close?
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But dyslek.... dislyx... that word has to get an honourable mention. Have always thought that using it to dyscribe a condition that makes reading and/or spelling diffiicult is a measure of human perversity.
IRD xxx
State the nature of your disabiltiy:
Dys...
Sorry I can't even spell dioharreehahahaha - as in verbal. I'll shut up now. -
Key too
Official National Party Policy.
e.g. Labour will continue to follow an independent foreign policy. Key too.
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I'm not sure if that's my nomination though. When do nominations close?
End of the week-ish. It would be helpful if someone could list the contenders in a post here (I'm going to be kind of consumed by Thursday's party and am likely to be unwell on Friday) and then I'll get a Survey Monkey page up to take votes.
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Thus far we have:
its Business Time
rotation
reconditioning
Rotation and Reconditioning
Carbon
sausage-wallet
Migration (as in bubble)
Carbonista
Terrorista
Urewera
Te Qaeda
robust
random
Guybrarian
Coskriedictory
mum and dad investors
broconomy
Sustainability
Wayne Barnes
versing
World Class
Fizzer
Créditos de carbono/carbocred
Munter and Cheryl
Tuhoe
going forward
Theatre
The Beltway
Stupidiocracy
underwhelming
Common sense
Vindication
Love-Truncheon
Encrapt
demagogracy
nearmissedness
Dyslexia
proportion
Jaffanese
Craft2.0
I-bicycle
sub-prime
refute
Key tooApologies to anyone I missed.
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