Grexit Gains Currency

The latest set of additions to Oxford Dictionaries Online has an entertaining range of buzzwords from the last couple of years, as ever from a wide variety of sources.

I think that of all the new words selected for inclusion in this update, Grexit is the one which seems to have the most sticking power. Meaning the potential withdrawal of Greece from the Eurozone, it has shown it has staying power by continually reappearing in the news as the economic problems of Greece continue to multiply.

But it shows a great deal more flexibility than that, because it has already become a term from which others are derived, it spawns its own crop of new words. Brexit, possible British withdrawal from the European Union, is one prime example and is included in this update as well. I think a new word which already has its own sub-genre of related words deserves its official recognition.

Some of my favourite recent words which I never got around to looking at in Wordability make an appearance. Manspreading, “the practice whereby a man, especially one travelling on public transport, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats” is a particularly good term and garnered much coverage a few months back. Now it is appearing with increasing regularity in stories across the world and looks set to become fully established as a great term for an act which is somewhat anti-social and unpleasant.

I was also pleased to see fatberg gain some recognition, following a number of stories about ‘large masses of waste in sewerage systems’. The last couple of years seems to have seen an almost competitive rise in stories about increasingly horrendous fatbergs being found in different cities, and as the ghastliness of each subsequent fatberg has increased, so has the word become fixed in people’s minds.

The entry which surprised me the most is MacGyver, a verb meaning “to make or repair (an object) in an improvised or inventive way, making use of whatever items are at hand.” It doesn’t surprise me that the word is used. What surprises me is that it has been included now. Derived from the television show of the 1980s, where lead character MacGyver used all manner of household objects to get himself out of tricky situations, it seems an odd time to finally give recognition to a term which has been around for quite some time. Perhaps it has been enjoying a revival on daytime TV, with a consequent growth in usage.

But that’s just a quibble. Any list which celebrates the fact that awesomesauce, cakeage and beer o’clock are now legitimate members of the English language is all right by me.