Tag: Grexit

Put your money on Brexit

Union JackI am not a betting man, so will not be putting a penny on the outcome of the EU Referendum later this year. The fact that I haven’t got a clue which way it will go is also a contributory factor to that decision.

But if I could find a bookmaker who would give me odds on the Oxford Word of the Year for 2016, I think I could put a wager down now and be confident of collecting my winnings in time for Christmas.

Brexit was not born this year. But this is the year in which it has blossomed and bloomed and become the go-to word to encapsulate the campaign to leave the European Union. The Leave campaign? Doesn’t resonate. The Brexit campaign? Bingo!

I first wrote about Brexit in January 2013, when the word began to be used in relation to a possible UK referendum on the EU at some distant time in the future. At the time I said I was surprised to see that Grexit had spawned cousins and was not just a one-off, especially as Brexit remains as inaccurate then as it was now. We are not debating a British exit from Europe, rather a UK-wide one. UKexit still doesn’t cut it.

Nonetheless, the word works. People understand it, it is an easy term to rally behind, it seems to fully encapsulate its subject. It has comfortably bequeathed us Brexiteers to mean people supporting a Brexit, and we all just nod and get on with it. Sometimes a word just fits, and this is one of those times.

In fact, so little do people now care about its etymology that they use Brexit as the catch-all term for stories about Northern Ireland as well, paying no heed to the linguistic snub to which the country is being subjected.

Already secure in the Oxford Dictionary online annals, the word is now fully established in the English language. If the vote in June goes in favour of staying, Brexit will still hang around to fuel the debate. After all, as the Scottish Referendum has shown us, just because a vote ends up leaving the status quo intact it doesn’t mean that the debate over having the vote again won’t recur.

And of course, if the UK does leave the EU, then we won’t be able to escape the word Brexit at all. Either way, I think its coronation as the word of the year is already assured.

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.

Grexit Not Just for Grimbo

Whatever you may feel about the economic ramifications of Greece’s ongoing financial hardships, you have to acknowledge the contribution they have made to the English language.

First we had Grexit, the prospect of Greece leaving the euro, which spawned many sub-genres of alternative exit word. And now, with economic paralysis because Greece has still not left the eurozone but still might, there is a state of limbo. A Greek limbo. Or Grimbo, if you will.

Citigroup, the economics experts who gave us Grexit back in 2012, are responsible for the latest word. In a statement, they explained the economic backdrop and concluded that “Grexit in the next few months is not inconceivable, and it is certainly more likely if we consider Grimbo durations of a year or more.” No gobbledygook there then.

Sadly this will not be the end of the Greek neologisms. Economists at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch have responded with Grexhaustion, the definition of which frankly escapes me at the moment but is unlikely to be ‘being fed up with the coining of new words to describe the Greek economic crisis’.

But the one thing that is certain as this situation rolls on is that for as long as people are reporting it, then they will be vying with each other to coin the next Greek-inspired word to describe the crisis. The ultimate game of Grone-upmanship, perhaps.

Scrabbling To Find a New Word

The official Scrabble dictionary has not been updated since 2005. But of course much has changed since then, so with a new update on the way shortly, the process of adding to the official word list has also evolved.

And so Facebook comes in. Scrabble manufacturers Hasbro have launched a competition via the social network for people to nominate their suggested words. These will then be whittled down to a shortlist and from there, one will be chosen to be fast tracked into the dictionary.

In some ways, the coverage has been fairly predictable, with Selfie and Twerking emerging as the most likely words to win the vote, according to the papers at any rate, and they are included in the nearly 3,000 comments currently sitting on the page.

Personally I think that it is important to target words with large scores, preferably those containing the expensive letters. Having gone back through the annals of Wordability to find suitably high-scoring options, I come back with Grexit, while KALQ would also score well. Phubbing has a number of high scoring components, while also giving users a chance to get rid of all of their letters.

But I find myself agreeing with many of the people who have posted on the official page with suggestions. Step forward Bart Simpson, who famously invented the word Kwyjibo and scored over 100 points into the bargain. What a wonderful winner that would be, only slightly undermined by the fact it isn’t actually a real word.

Of course, life will not imitate art in this respect, and Kwyjibo will not be the winner of this contest. But I just hope that it is not something entirely obvious, and we are not treated to another round of Selfie and Twerking headlines before too long.

Brexit Should Head For The Exit

I thought I was joking last year when I speculated on where Greece’s possible departure from the Eurozone might take the English language. Silly me.

While Grexit flourished as the buzzword for what Greece might do, I didn’t really think that linguistic development around the word ‘Exit’ was here to stay. But Brexit has changed all of that.

Brexit, referring to the United Kingdom’s possible abandonment of the European Union, enjoyed isolated appearances in 2012 but has really jumped to the forefront for headline writes and commentators in the last few days, as David Cameron girds himself to speak about where the country sits in relation to Europe and prepares people for some sort of referendum.

So what to make of this new form of word creation? Clearly it has gone beyond the specifics of leaving the Eurozone, as the UK’s connection is related to the whole EU. And while there remains a European connection, it is easy to see this type of formation now spreading its tentacles towards other types of exit.

Of course, accuracy isn’t everything. The debate is over the United Kingdom leaving the EU, not Britain, but frankly, Ukexit doesn’t cut it as a new word, while at least Brexit sounds like a word, even if it jars somewhat.

But the only way we will really know if this is here to stay is if it moves away from the corridors of Brussels. If Shakespeare’s most famous stage direction were to be reduced to ”Ursinexit’, then we will have confirmation that exit rule has made an entrance that is here to stay.

:: Don’t forget that Eastwooding With the Mother Flame: The Words of 2012 is still available for Kindle or in paperback. Click here for more information.

Grexit – A Eurozone Language Crisis

If things were not bad enough for countries across Europe because of the ongoing economic crisis, they have just got a great deal worse thanks to the spawning of a particularly ugly new word.

Commentators around the globe now have a term to encapsulate the possibility of Greece exiting the Euro – they have called it a Grexit.

Apart from saving headline space for stressed sub-editors, it is hard to see what other function this word serves. It’s not pleasing on the ear, it takes a couple of seconds to work out what it actually means, and it’s frankly unnecessary – Greek Exit is hardly a term that was crying out to be shortened.

It is also not a word that can really be extended – if Spain or Portugal were to consider withdrawal, Spexit or Pexit just don’t cut it. But despite all of this, I expect it to become heavily used, while its prominence in the news cycle makes it likely to feature in many ‘Words of the Year’ lists.

The people I feel really sorry for are online webmail company Grexit, whose operation may now forever be tarnished by association with an economic crisis of which they are not a part. I do hope not. There are many casualties of the economic problems engulfing Europe at the moment. It would be a shame if a piece of linguistic nonsense claimed another.