Strictly speaking
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Gothic values
The word Gothic (in Latin “gothicus”) would have struck terror into the hearts of 5th-century Romans, with its dark connotations…
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anecdata and anecdota
Both anecdata and anecdota are cousins of anecdote, a 17th-century loanword from French that goes back to the Greek word…
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Google
The term google has become so familiar – both as the proprietary name of the Internet search engine and as…
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Trevally, trevalla
These fish names originate from one and the same word, according to the earliest Southern Hemisphere records published in Morris’s…
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Creeping
A recent blog entry for Cambridge Dictionaries Online (June 23, 2014) recorded a new use of the word creeping to mean “secretly…
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Gifable
Barely hours after the 2014 Oscars ceremony had finished, online headlines were touting its most gifable, or GIF-Able moments. The…
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Shipping
One of the favourite pastimes of fans of a TV or book series is to imagine beloved characters as a…
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HIPSTER
Hipster and hippie/hippy both owe their existence to the older adjective hip/hep meaning “smart”, in its twin senses of “street-wise”…
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A wine by any other name would taste as sweet
The sixth edition of the Macquarie Dictionary has just published and among the many new Australianisms featured is the word…
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Twerking, badassery
These two words from American slang came together by coincidence in the Oxford Dictionary Online’s 2013 list of additions to…
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Aquamation
The process of disposing of human corpses is not usually considered an area of great innovation. So conservative have we…
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Scumble and scumball
Visitors to the JMW Turner exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia may come across scumble, a curious word from…
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Astroturfing
The practice of astroturfing involves an interested party creating the illusion of public support, to push a particular agenda. For…
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2012 Words of the Year
The Macquarie Dictionary recently announced its winners of word (or phrase) of last year. Those chosen by the selection committee…
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DINKUM
Colloquial words that come from nowhere can be redeployed and radically redesigned in different times and places. Dinkum is one…
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Iron Lady
The recent death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher has given rise to a spate of articles about the…
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Self-imaging
The word self-image is usually understood as someone’s mental construction of themself, which may or may not correspond with their…
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Astroturfing
The practice of astroturfing involves an interested party creating the illusion of public support, to push a particular agenda. For…
Read More » -
Dinkum
Colloquial words that come from nowhere can be redeployed and radically redesigned in different times and places. Dinkum is one…
Read More » -
Iron Lady
The recent death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher has given rise to a spate of articles about the…
Read More » -
Self-imaging
The word self-image is usually understood as someone’s mental construction of themself, which may or may not correspond with their…
Read More » -
MEME
The term meme, or more particularly internet meme, has become a buzzword to describe any concept or idea that spreads…
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THE LAST HUMMER
The vehicle that looks like a railway carriage on wheels charging down the highway is a reminder of the rapid…
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Romnesia
In a speech in Virginia on October 19, Barack Obama riffed on the term Romnesia to accuse his Republican opponent…
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INDEFFED
Indefinite appointments give unlimited tenure to academics, which must be one of the few positive uses of the adjective. The…
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