Saturday 24 March 2012

Buzz Words of 2006 and 2007


2006
eating al desko
keeper
for thing or partner you want to keep
Who knew? (replaces Who’da thought it?)
lab for labrador

woollen is now wool, knitted knit and wooden wood, but roast has become roasted (vegetables)

mantra
is back
a trench coat is now a trench (like a dashboard is a dash)
multi/polyvalent

His desire to create an open-ended, multivalent architecture is inversely proportional to his revulsion for crudely reductive buildings: Guardian June 22 2003
Islamic militancy is a multivalent, diverse and complex phenomenon. Guardian Feb 9 2003
Efforts to mitigate this situation take the form of the production of multivalent vaccines - that is, vaccines containing several of the strains... Guardian April 17 2001

hollow out (industries, areas)
the elephant in the room
let x be your friend
artisanal (It’s an American thing - but now it's over here 2012 - and we're sick of it 2016.)

storied for historic, legendary
Coach Kudryavtsev says Russian skaters benefit from the storied tradition of Russian ballet (Web)

do for hairdo
underscore for highlight
swell for expand, rise
Team (Insert Name Here)
making inroads for gaining ground

slouchy
(for baggy trousers, jerseys – not new (slouch socks were 80s) - but no one says baggy any more

“Nobody sits down to eat any more.”
rescue dog for rescued dog
sweep to mean what exactly? sweep the board? conquer? pass through? (the first man to sweep three events)
mightily
tumultuous where they used to say turbulent
rubber chicken circuit (official hospitality serving up chewy chicken)
kick back for relax (seems not to mean a bribe any more)

bragging rights
stakeholder (been around a few years, probably part of the PFI)
go-to guy
boutique
(hotel, beach resort etc. meaning upmarket, exclusive, unique, tasteful, new, clean, comfortable, small)
shutter for close down
reality bites (film? TV?)
pap (v) (for take sneaky photos)
Who’s the daddy? (film?)
speak to for testify to
WAGs (wives and girlfriends)
sclerotic
boom box (a kind of wireless set)

player
for promiscuous person, Lothario, womaniser, playboy, creep, commitment-phobe, promise-breaker (and when did people stop saying promiscuous?)

canary in the mine, or just canary (odd because mines haven’t needed canaries since Humphrey Davy invented his lamp)

gallerist
stone
for real gaining ground? It's a stone bargain Observer Oct 8 06
cuff for bangle

“I think we are seeing a whole new way of developing social networks here” – say about any technological innovation.


tipping point
coalesce

Twice on Dec 23 2006, the Times weirdly uses “steer” for “pointer”. (It was everywhere that week, then vanished as quickly as it appeared.)

2007
Why is everybody using the expression “sorry-arsed” and variations in the week of Jan 1, months after Prince Harry used it on TV?

written up for for given a written warning for (may be American)
surge for sending more soldiers to Iraq
fashion forward
Good luck with that! (Or: A nice touch.)
Spanx
time bomb has become ticking time bomb
salad bowl (metaphor for multiculturalism 2007)
People are using Jones to mean yearn. Why?
rictus is popular, but people are misusing it

More here, and links to the rest.

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