Will Woyomism Spread Across The World?

If you are a regular reader of Wordability, the chances are that you have never heard of Alfred Agbesi Woyome. But if you are reading this in Ghana, you will know all about him.

Woyome is currently on trial in Ghana, accused of defrauding the country’s Government out of more than 50 million Ghanian Cedi (GHC). It’s a high profile case and is duly getting lots of coverage.

So why should Wordability be interested? Well, the case has prompted an outburst of new words, especially across social media. Using Woyome as a basis to mean a systematic attempt to defraud a country, a whole raft of words are now cropping up across the internet. These include:

Woyomics: The art of using fake documents to acquire a gargantuan money

Woyometicable: A system that can easily be Woyomised

Woyometrics: The science of calculating a huge sum of money obtained woyomecally.

Woyomee: Someone who has been Woyomised or a person who has suffered as a result of Woyome issue

Woyomer: A person using Woyomic strategy to acquire a gargantuan money from the state or Someone who Woyomises people.

Will these catch on outside Ghana? Possibly not, but with the interconnected world we now live in, it is a reminder that changes to the English language can come from any country, at any time.

And if you do start to hear the term in regular conversation, remember where you read about it first.

Is Ineptocracy the Future of Government?

Writing in the Guardian this week, sketch writer Simon Hoggart claimed that Labour MP Paul Flynn had invented a new word. He wrote: “11.55: Paul Flynn coins new word for what the coalition has created: “An ineptocracy of greed.” Won’t catch on.”

Unfortunately for Mr Hoggart, he was wrong on two counts. Firstly, Mr Flynn didn’t coin the word. And secondly, it already has.

Ineptocracy has been around very fleetingly for at least 10 years, but seems to have picked up a head of steam towards the end of 2011 and is now starting to increase in usage both in blogs and on Twitter.

It is not yet in any official dictionaries but is being defined by users as “A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.” Other, simpler definitions, suggest it is simply a ruling government which is incompetent.

It is certainly gaining traction in the United States, and Googling “ineptocracy obama” yields quite a number of results, suggesting that opponents are beginning to fix on the word as a way of encapsulating their negativity towards his presidency.

Mr Flynn is possibly the first person to be using the word in the UK, and always in relation to the Coalition. As well as his mention this week, he also write a blog last October called Building the Ineptocracy, but it seems he was responding to the growing usage of it from across the Atlantic and wanted to see if he could tie the current UK Government into it.

So will ineptocracy stick? There are factors against that. On a prosaic level, it is difficult to say and even to spell. I find I keep stopping to think about it as I type this piece. The fact that it doesn’t easily trip off tongue or keyboard may limit its growth. It may also be limited because it sounds quite specialised and a word owned by political writers and experts.

But I can see it growing as a shorthand way for bloggers and commentators to describe what they see as failed governments, so I can see ineptocracy gaining some official dictionary recognition later this year. And if a campaigning politician should pick up on it and throw it into a speech, then that validation will be very rapid indeed.

Swapportunity Knocks for New Word

Let’s get one thing straight from the outset – Swapportunity is not a recognised word. But is its status about to change?

Swapportunity’s current emergence is an advertising executive’s dream. The word features in an American commercial for yoghurt company Yoplait. The ad revolves around an earnest boy taking part in a spelling bee and shows his horror when he is asked to spell the word ‘Swapportunity’. His ire is not helped when he is told that it is defined as “The opportunity to swap a higher calorie snack for a delicious Yoplait Light”. Affronted, he protests that it is not a real word. It’s very funny, and worth a look:

Clearly, swapportunity will not catch on as a genuine word if its definition is tied up with low calorie yoghurts. But it does have a chance as a more generic word, meaning the opportunity to swap something.

Now I know that this isn’t a yawning chasm of meaning crying out for a word to encapsulate it. But there is evidence that it is being used. An Atlanta fashion event, The Ultimate Swapportunity, has just taken place. Musician website The Gear Page has discussed using it to create a market for musicians to trade instruments. And there are isolated examples from the last couple of years to show that this linguistic innovation has been on the margins, with a Forbes piece about corporate bonds being the most high brow.

So while swapportunity will not be appearing in dictionaries in the next few weeks, I think it has a chance of not only growing online but also being used at trading events. I am sure it is an opportunity it would not want to swap.

Let’s Get Physible!

New technology always breeds new words. So I wonder if this one will catch on.

One of the newest developments in technology is the 3D printer. This device does exactly what you would expect it to, namely it takes a data file and ‘prints’ the object out as a physical item. OK, you wouldn’t have expected to be able to ‘print’ a doll or a shoe in your own home five years ago, but that’s progress for you.

So far, there hasn’t been a catch-all name for objects that you can create in this way. Until now, that is.

The Pirate Bay, an infamous piracy and file-sharing website, has now started hosting suitable files on its website, and has created a new category for them. It has dubbed them ‘Physibles’.

Will this word stick? In some senses, it already has. The Pirate Bay announcement has picked up coverage that is beginning to extend beyond the technology blogs. All are using the word ‘physible’, albeit in inverted commas. So it may not be long before the punctuation disappears and physible become the standard word for these files.

Except. The Pirate Bay has long been unpopular with makers of films and music for facilitating the illegal downloading and sharing of material. Model makers such as Games Workshop are already angered by the physible development as it could harm sales of their models.

So will the technology world allow the Pirate Bay to take linguistic ownership of this burgeoning development, or will someone on the more legitimate side of the fence suggest an alternative? This is a technology in need of a name. The question is whether the Pirate Bay’s Physible will be allowed to prevail.

Tebowing Sets Benchmark for Sporting Gestures

The rise of Tebowing has been a linguistic phenomenon. Despite its global sweep, I forgive my UK readers for not quite knowing what I’m talking about. But it’s a great tale of how new words become fixed in English. So let me explain.

On October 23, the Denver Broncos enjoyed a dramatic 18-15 victory over the Miami Dolphins in the NFL. As wild celebrations ensued, star quarterback Tim Tebow was seen at the side of the pitch, down on one knee and and in prayer. So far, so comparatively normal.

Local fan Jared Kleinstein spotted the moment and persuaded a few of his friends to pose in similar vein to celebrate the victory. The picture was duly posted to Facebook. Immediately, people started to ‘like’ the image, and an international smash hit was born.

The tebowing blog followed soon afterwards, liberally filled with people ‘tebowing’ in ever more extravagant places. And by December, ‘tebowing’ was officially recognised as a word by the Global Language Monitor, defining it as the the act of ’taking a knee’ in prayerful reflection in the midst of an athletic activity. It is surely one of the quickest rises to linguistic acceptance of any word and is now an international fad.

So why has this word taken off? I think its success has a lot to do with the silliness which surrounds much of what we enjoy on the Internet. We have all seen and enjoyed countless viral pictures and jokes, via Facebook, email and other methods, and we enjoy them for their absurdity. But for true success,there has to be more. And this can quite often be the ability to personalise and participate.

So it is with tebowing, because its global surge is very little to do with the initial action by the player himself and much more to do with what people did with it. The fact that people could take part, show themselves as active participants in the phenomenon rather than merely observers, gave it its viral oomph. We are all part of the joke, we can all join in, so the word which describes what we are all doing needs to become established quickly because it confirms that we all belong to something official and legitimate.

It is also an action which is easy to replicate, in any place. I found myself thinking through famous goal celebrations of the past. Certain players always celebrated in the same way, but because they were from a different era and because they were not easy to reproduce anywhere in the world, they could never spawn their own word. Thus, running very fast with one arm up will never be known as ‘Shearering’, and running with one arm windmilling madly beside you is only ‘Channoning’ as far as I am concerned.

The final question for linguists is whether tebowing is here to stay, or whether its run as a fully-fledged word is for a single season. But even if it is consigned to the linguistic dustbin almost as quickly as it arrived, we should all go down on one knee and give thanks for a fabulous illustration of how well new words can explode in the English Language.

Banish Blue Monday – Vote for Wordability

What is it with colours and days? Towards the end of last year, we had Black Friday, a shopping day tradition from America which is now spreading around the world. And thanks to the influence of a mobile phone company, we all know that the busiest days at the cinema are Orange Wednesdays.

And so to the most depressing day of the year, which is rapidly coming to an end as I write this. According to scientists, the third Monday is awarded this dubious accolade because of the combination of post-Christmas depression, bills and gloomy weather. Welcome to “Blue Monday”.

The date of Blue Monday is calculated according to a special and complex formula devised by psychologist Cliff Arnall. Its slightly nonsensical nature probably explains why it is not a naming convention that has really caught on – after all, you probably only really know that Blue Monday is almost over because I just told you. And apparently Dr Arnall now believes that Blue Monday should be called Red Monday to mark the influence of our increasing economic woes. If the expert behinds the day isn’t even convinced of the name any more, what hope for the rest of us.

It just goes to show that naming something to try and define it is not always a guarantee of getting it to seep into public consciousness.

Of course, if you have been suffering from Blue Monday-itis, good news is at hand. Wordability has been nominated in the Best Blog category in the Macmillan Love English awards 2011. So why don’t you follow this link and vote for Wordability – it will help to lift those January blues!

Who’s Been Looking in my Wardrobe?

You have to love the Urban Dictionary. It’s a website made up of definitions submitted by users to reflect the way they speak, with scant regard for whether the words and phrases suggested will ever pass the test of the lexicographer.

Their daily ‘word of the day’ e-mail is a mixture of the bizarre, the hilarious and the sometimes obscene. But what I didn’t expect was that one day, it would feature a definition related to my wardrobe.

So I give you the word of the day for January 10 – Hugh Wear. Hugh Wear is defined as ‘The name for a person’s extensive wardrobe of bath robes’. Frankly, I’m flummoxed. I only have one. And it hangs on a door. Surely somebody has defined this word incorrectly, surely it should have been ‘A language expert’s collection of slightly frayed shirts’.

I did wonder whether Hugh Wear was an Urban Dictionary original or a term which had gained internet notoriety. But it seems not. It is a new line of clothing, celebrating the country and the old West. Nothing to do with me, I don’t even own a stetson. There is also a gun shop in Kentucky, and a an Illinois resident who was born in 1841. He had five children, so maybe he had lots of bath robes knocking around the place.

Sadly, I am not sure I will be able to find a suitable explanation for this trend. Just have to go out and buy a dressing gown, I guess.

Change Leads the Change in Election Language

Lovers of new words will have been delighted to see the success that Rick Santorum had in the Iowa caucuses this week. But while the former senator will have been equally pleased at making a good start in the lengthy journey to the White House, he will not want to be reminded about his contribution to neologisms.

In 2003, Mr Santorum made some comments in an interview which were viewed as anti-gay. Shortly afterwards, gay rights activist Dan Savage wrote about the remarks and was encouraged by a reader to launch a competition to find a new sexual definition for Santorum in order to forever associate the politician with his remarks.

There were more than 3,000 entries and the final result, which I won’t repeat here for readers of a delicate disposition but can be found here, is still the top item which comes out when you search for ‘Santorum’ on Google.

It’s certain that Mr Santorum would not have wanted this in people’s minds when he plotted his assault on the presidency, and frankly, it would have been the kind of thing that could have been dismissed as old trivia. Until Mr Santorum contacted Google in September 2011 and asked them to remove the offending website from their indexes. And Google, predictably, said no. Well done Mr Santorum, that certainly helped people to forget about the issue.

Wordability finds this tale interesting on two counts. Firstly, it is unusual to actually solicit a new meaning for a word – these things tend to evolve naturally, so the competition aspect of this quest is refreshingly different.

The second reason is more to do with politics, and specifically American election politics. Wordability will be following the US election year with great interest to see which words emerge as the dominant ones. Politicians everywhere, but especially in the United States, are masters at changing the nuances of a particular word and repeatedly using it during a campaign to subtly influence the mindset of voters.

The Republican party are regarded as formidable masters of this skill. For example, before 2004, you might have been forgiven for thinking that a flip-flop was not much more than some fairly flimsy footwear that you would wear to the beach. But the Republicans noticed how Democrat candidate John Kerry had a habit of changing his mind on key issues, and the notion of Kerry and the flip-flop was born. The potency of that one word was a key part of the ultimately successful campaign against him, and received widespread coverage.

You might also think that the word ‘liberal’ is not necessarily a bad one and simply suggests an even-minded and tolerant approach to the issues. Yet in the United States, it has become a term that means quite left wing and prone to overspending Government money, and Republican politicians use it as a word with which to savage their Democrat adversaries.

But with the Democrats dominating the 2008 election, it was no surprise that a word from that campaign not only helped the Barack Obama victory campaign but was also the most significant word of the year. That word was ‘change’.

The subtle shift in meaning that the Obama campaign achieved was actually quite stunning. Of course, any politician campaigning to unseat a rival party is going to be preaching a message of change. ‘Vote for me, I’m exactly the same as the other guy’ is a surefire way of making sure that other guy wins.

But what the now-president did was to make ‘change’ something so much more than just ‘something different’. It became a potent word meaning not only a break from the current situation but also a golden and more rosy future, that the change that was coming was a better life, a greater life, a life to which we all aspire. No matter that he did not have to define how this change would be achieved, no problem that offering change is quite clearly the most obvious thing that any politician should do. No, all he had to do was keep on offering this mystical ‘change’ to all who were listening, and the quite hypnotic effect it had on voters propelled him to victory.

One caucus in, we are a long way off knowing who will be taking on the incumbent later this year and of course we have no idea who will be inaugurated in January 2013. But we can say that lovers of political language change will certainly be winners, as we wait to see what linguistic dexterity the next 10 months will bring. Let the battle commence.

How The Turkeys Got Stuffed

To celebrate the holiday season, Wordability brings you a festive short story:

It was headline news when turkeys voted for Christmas.

Farmer Colin Walters had assumed the ballot papers in the turkey coop were the work of ironic kids. But then he noticed how the turkeys were jostling each other to get as much feed as possible, and when he joked “you really did vote for Christmas”, he was staggered when one replied “it was about time”.

Within days, Barry the Turkey was on television, explaining how turkeys had finally decided to accept the inevitable and acknowledge they were merely Christmas fodder for the masses.

People were not sure what amazed them more – that turkeys were so self-sacrificing, or that Barry could talk. Whichever one it was, this show of intelligence convinced many that these sentient beings could not adorn their Christmas table, and that year, nut roasts ran short on supermarket shelves.

Buoyed by his supporters on radio and the internet, Barry described his love for language and launched his war on cliche. To that end, he unveiled his chocolate teapot, specially tempered to avoid melting. Shortly afterwards, he flew to the Arctic and sold a snow machine to a group of eskimos.

But when he returned and checked out his legions of fans on website forums and phone-in shows, he found they had changed. His murdering of their basic phrases had deprived them of the only way they had of expressing themselves, and suddenly angry invective trailed off into oblivion as the self-styled arbiters of modern-day opinion found they had no resources with which to finish their sentences.

And so Barry became a figure of hate as a popular movement to turn him into twizzlers was formed. His achievements were forgotten and turkeys went back to eating the minimum of what was put in front of them.

Barry locked himself up and threw away the key.

Staines-Upon-Thames I Hardly Knew You

And so it’s true. Staines, that humble town in Surrey, or Middlesex, depending on your point of view, is no more. From now on, it is Staines-upon-Thames.

Why do I care? Here I declare my personal interest. I was brought up in Staines. My father ran a business there for years. My grandfather was the mayor. There is even a road named after my family.

Why does Wordability care? Well, as  argued when Newcastle United announced plans to rename St James’ Park, names matter. They are fundamental words which define the way we see things, and changing long-established ones can cause immense upheaval.

The good people of Staines have decided enough of derision, enough of the Ali G association. They say that Staines is a vibrant town with an enviable riverside location, and by recognising that in the name, it will immeasurably improve the town’s standing and perception.

A commendable argument. But wrong, I think, in a peculiarly 21st century way. If the council had decided this 100 years ago, not many people would have noticed. They could have subtly introduced the name, changed signs, letterheads and so on, and people would have gradually become aware of the change and accepted it

But in the interconnected modern world, where Ali G is infamous and the internet has spread the story far and wide, it has opened the decision up to potential ridicule which can spread across the world. So rather than people merely accepting the decision, it automatically comes coloured with the comments, the links and the opinions of countless people that this is a pointless and slightly laughable exercise.

While there will be official efforts next year to implement the name, everybody will still refer to it as Staines. Who talks about Richmond-upon-Thames or Kingston-upon-Hull? Probably only the councillors who thought this was a good idea in the first place.

And if people ask me where I am from, the answer will still be Staines. Because in reality, that will still be its name.