New Words

Teachers make sure young minds understand that language is dynamic and that it changes and evolves over time. Old words become archaic and fall by the wayside, others are modified

            And, of course, people have developed their own common regional words. Hearing a Scot and an Australian in conversation, you might wonder if they are speaking the same language. Also, words are created when people find nothing suitable exists. Take for example the word recreationist, a person who plans and designs activities for seniors and others.  While the word cannot be found in the dictionary, it clearly expresses the work the person does.

            With the current state of politics and the speed of communication today, new words or acronyms seem to appear on a regular basis.

            A poll of Americans is showing a list of annoying words that have appeared in the last year of so. They include cofefe (which as far as I can tell no one knows what it really means) and of course fake news as well as post-truth (information that appeals to emotion rather than being objective facts).  Non-annoying words have also appeared and include working memory, as opposed to long-term or short-term memory, refers to memory that involves focusing on information for a just a few seconds, i.e. the number we punch into a phone. The term funk up means to raise the energy level, as in “I need to funk up when I wake up in the morning.”

            I was surprised to read that the commonly used word whatever annoys older people more than younger ones.

            The advent of new avenues for global information and communication has spun its own vocabulary. Now twitter is all the rage as people feel a need to let the world know what they are doing or thinking, almost minute by minute. Today, m-learning i.e. mobile or distance learning via electronic devices, is welcome by many who otherwise may not be able to get an education. This means there is no reason not to learn no matter a person’s age; the options are limitless.

            We are all familiar with the acronyms millennials use to save time and energy as they text, i.e. BTW (by the way); LOL (laughing out loud); but new ones have come into usage: BWL (bursting with laughter); BWA (bitch with attitude); and one that applies to me: SPEXY (sexy with glasses).

             Awesome is still very much in usage by the younger crowd and applies to almost anything and anyone. But, let’s not forget that cool is still very much in usage and is even used as a verb as in cool it. We all know the sign # for hashtag has replaced the sign that used to indicate number. Remember?

            The travel industry now has its own lexicon. Staycations, popular in hard times, are vacations taken at home or close to home. Voluntourism combines travel with doing volunteer work abroad, while, as the name implies, microvacations are brief vacations. And grey nomads are retired people who travel around in motor homes getting together with other grey nomads along the way.   

            Spin has many meanings. Putting a spin on it or being a spin doctor is a latter-day definition which certainly applies to advertising, or to efforts used these  days by men caught in possible career-ending dilemmas.