Word of the Year 2007
175 Responses
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__But it did piss me off that it always pulled me up for using the passive voice, or any sentence with more than 15 words. Would have been good if you could turn certain warnings off, as 'my style' settings.__
Umm, you can - Tools, Options, Spelling & Grammar, Grammar Settings.
It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff you have to turn off in Word -- usually in two places for each "feature" -- to make it usable.
Oh, and I'll work on a summary of candidates from this thread over the weekend, put them into Survey Monkey -- and see who gets the goodies ...
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A classic one for me was the first line in a sales document I had to proofread:
"The savings generated by our system cannot be underestimated".
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I hereby nominate: "my first life"
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"Sub prime" does it for me
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"Sub prime" does it for me too!
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"Sub prime" does it for me
Not for me. It's just too, well, foreign. I mcuch preferred Emma's "underwhelming". Such an understated, NZ way of saying that it's been a poor year. Of course, if you were a cricket commentator, you would talk about it being "very average". I just don't understand that construction at all.
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Of course, if you were a cricket commentator, you would talk about it being "very average". I just don't understand that construction at all.
Its fairly simple. In fields where one is expected to excel, an average result is a bad thing.
See the rugby world cup and americas cup for more detail. In both events 'our' teams performed well above the international average, but were seen to have failed.
In sport average = bad.
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The Society of the German Language (GfdS) has picked “Klimakatastrophe” (climate disaster) as its “word of the year”, an annual honour awarded to the term the prestigious Wiesbaden-based group feels has captured the spirit or dominated the headlines and public discussion of the year.
I do like the way the German language can pack a whole sentence into one word. It makes coining new words so much more fun, while us English speakers get stuck trying to nominate phrases for word of the year.
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The class might find it instructive to compare the 'average'/'very average' judgement - which had a far wider currency than sport commentators when I was yoof - to 'mediocre', both in terms of meaning and derivation.
It might provide hope to people who think of NZ as a nation of tall-poppy-lopping sheep that we seem to have a disparaging view of the statistically ordinary.
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"Sub prime" does it for me too!
I can report that "sub prime" is indeed in the leading group.
Have you voted?
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Of course, if you were a cricket commentator, you would talk about it being "very average".
Ah, a sport I can care about in December... I wrote a blog once about the unique vocab of cricket commentary. I think we're beyond 'very average' and into 'decidedly average' at this point, 'decidedly average' meaning 'abysmal', and coming just above 'poor' meaning 'somebody's arm just fell off'.
But I think it reflects a grain of laconic understatement in our game which compares very well (for vocab purposes, not game results) with Australia's brashness and England's formality before their players started forgetting words like 'bus' and calling Tony Blair a twat.
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Russell Brown wrote :
I can report that "sub prime" is indeed in the leading group.
Objection, your honour. Leading the witness !
How come "underwhelming" didn't make the list - I thought it was the best on offer !
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How come "underwhelming" didn't make the list - I thought it was the best on offer !
Me too!
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Aw, you guys are sweet. If'n any of you wanna send my whiskey, just let me know.
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I know Im about a fortnight late with this, but I thought I'd chuck it in here anyway:
McClarkthyism: a moral panic which causes the afflicted to suffer excessive fear of a minority group and see members of said group under every bed. In extreme cases, sufferers may use their fears to justify poorly-conceived laws. Famous sufferers include Annette King and Chris Carter.
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How come "underwhelming" didn't make the list - I thought it was the best on offer !
Um, not quite sure, but it's a bit late now. Sorry.
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I do like the way the German language can pack a whole sentence into one word.
Like "Donaudampfshiffahrtselektricitatenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamptengesellschaft"?
The longest word I've ever tried to say. Something about the Danube and boats I think.
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Oops and I missed a 'c'...see if you can spot where.
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This just in: Merriam-Webster's have just nominated w00t as their WOTY. W00t! for WOTY!
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Oops and I missed a 'c'...see if you can spot where.
Beside that 's'?
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Impressive Jeremy. Your prize is you get to translate it.
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I'd vote for administrivia (that's all the stuff you do at you job that isn't really the core stuff you're paid to do), also I have do kinda like blamestorming.
In a related vein, am I the only person who find Radio NZ National's new favorite word incredibly grating - 'agin' as in Geoff says 'What are you agin it?' WTF what's wrong with against?
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Of course more accurately he'd probably say - 'Why are you agin it? because he reads his stuff before he presses send.
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This just in: Merriam-Webster's have just nominated w00t as their WOTY. W00t! for WOTY!
As someone who both plays a fair amount of games and also likes English, I find this incredibly lame - firstly because no one says woot in a non ironic fashion anymore, and secondly because it has the 0 character in it. If 'u' for 'you' or '2' for 'to' ever make it into a serious dictionary so help me I'm switching to Japanese.
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My money's on "sub-prime", thankfully not literally.
"Te Qaeda" comes a natural second, followed by "the beltway" - which is so openly American-imported and ludicrous it's got to be emblematic of something.
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