Strictly speaking
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Analysis
Strictly speaking | Retronym
Retronyms are newly coined words that remake or replace a pre-existing term in order to make room for innovations. For…
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Strictly speaking | Telegamy
On first encounter, telegamy one might think it refers to TV gaming. But put alongside its nearest relatives in English…
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Strictly speaking | Holistorexia
While we might recognise the verbal elements that make up the recently coined word holistorexia its meaning is not immediately…
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Strictly Speaking | RUOK
Amid concerns about other people’s mental health, this four-letter initialism/acronym for “Are you OK?” came alive in 2021. It was…
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Strictly Speaking | Crispr foods
At first sight this could be a slogan for crunchier fish and chips from the deep freeze, something which food…
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Strictly Speaking | Skinship
Words and phrases are quite often borrowed from other languages to express a concept for which there is no existing…
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Strictly speaking | Genericide
The - cide suffix provides us with homicide, the most general word for killing another person, as well as specific…
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Strictly speaking | Sousveillance
The ever-increasing use of technology to monitor our daily activities – from CCTV cameras on every street to social media…
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Strictly speaking | Proctoring
Just what does a proctor do? Essentially his role has always been to manage the affairs of others, as their…
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Strictly speaking | Zombie terms
Browsing through the Cambridge Dictionary’s new words blog, as you do, it’s noticeable how many new compounds are being formed…
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On Campus
Strictly speaking | Epistocracy
The term epistocracy* surfaced some years ago in philosophical discussions about the nature of democracy, starting with Estlund’s Democratic Authority…
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Strictly Speaking: Black Friday
You may have been a little confused when bombarded with advertising for ‘Black Friday’ sales in the lead-up to Christmas…
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Strictly speaking | Gammon
Britain’s agonising over Brexit has spawned a lot of new vocabulary. One of the most evocative of these words is…
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News
Strictly speaking | Plogging
A new fitness craze combines the personal benefits of running with the planetary benefits of picking up litter as you…
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News
Strictly speaking: facepalm/headdesk
A lot has been written (often negatively) about the effects of online technology on communication, with emoticons, emojis and abbreviations…
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News
Strictly speaking: gaslighting
The American dictionary website, www.merriam-webster.com, regularly features words that are trending in dictionary searches. One recent example was gaslighting –…
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Strictly speaking: unicorns and zebras
We think of unicorns as imaginary, mythical creatures, so you may be surprised to learn they actually exist. In the…
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Top Stories
Strictly speaking: haem
Air New Zealand recently announced that it will be serving a newly developed piece of food technology, known as the…
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Strictly speaking | Phubbing
Creating new words is an unpredictable business. How was Lewis Carroll to know that amongst the brillig, gimble and uffish…
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Strictly Speaking | LUXED and LUSH
An international hotel advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald invites readers to get luxed on a stopover in Singapore. Those…
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Strictly Speaking | Atas
English has always extended itself with words from other languages. Recent additions to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) have a…
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Strictly speaking | un-baller
This curious word appears in a current railway station advertisement for the American TV comedy series Ballers, which is streamed…
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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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