Tag: meme

Internet Has Fun at Brazil’s Expense

While Brazilians have been licking their wounds at their extraordinary thrashing at the hands of Germany in the World Cup, the internet has been awash with jokes at the unfortunate hosts’ expense.

There are a number of aspects of language change and communication that are demonstrated by the memes which have spread across the globe in the 24 hours since the match. The first is that the word meme is now firmly established as the term to describe creations of any sort, picture, video, joke, which are spread quickly around the world via social media and other technological means. I think this is a word that is still not properly understood by most people, but its jump from being a word for those in the know to the wider mainstream will have been helped by the enormous coverage the Brazilian memes have enjoyed since the final whistle.

Related to this is the idea that the nature of language itself is being changed by memes such as this. People want to say something about the game, they want to be part of the discussion and join in the fun. Now, rather than having to use words to formulate an idea, they create a picture or video as a way of making their point and then distribute it to spread that joke wider. And then others, who also want to join the conversation and say something about what has happened, simply pick their favourite meme and send it to their friends, in effect making a comment themselves. The tone of what they want to say is encapsulated by the meme they choose to share. So people are talking to each other by sharing jokes, rather than by using words. It is a key part of linguistic evolution and actually demonstrates a lingua franca that exists outside any spoken language which is currently active.

Finally new words will emerge as a result of this game, and the first is Mineirazo, named after the Estadio Mineirao where the game was played. This follows the word Maracanazo, coined after Brazil lost to Uruguay in the World Cup in 1950 in the Maracano Stadium. The new result is already being referred to in the media as the Mineirazo, and so this word will remain as the linguistic touchstone against which all future Brazilian performances, and possibly disasters, will be measured.

Exclusive: New Words on Oxford Radar

The recent coverage of the inclusion of Twerking in Oxford Dictionaries’ latest online update showed just how much people genuinely care about the state of English and the words that we use.

But lexicography moves on, and the guardians of the Oxford lists are already looking at what the next new words to be included might be.

In an exclusive interview, Wordability spoke to Fiona McPherson, Senior Editor, Oxford Dictionaries, who revealed some of the words which are currently being tracked by lexicographers and which may be the ones which feature prominently in updates of the future. You can watch the full interview here:

So to summarise, the words she selected are:

Bacne – basically, acne on your back

Hatewatch – an old Wordability favourite, first identified last year. The practice of watching something you really don’t like, and chatting to your friends about it while hating it.

Dosant – a cross between a doughnut and a croissant

Legsie – hot on the heels of Selfie’s recent inclusion, a photograph you take of your own legs. One can only imagine where this will end, but politeness means I will decline to suggest it

Appisode – an online episode of a television show

Phubbing – one of the great new words of this year, a personal favourite and one which has already entered everyday use in my household. Phone snubbing, using your smartphone when you are supposed to be talking to someone else

Nocialising – See above

Meme – not a new word, but a new sense, as Meme, a cultural idea which passes from person to person, now starts to become a verb

Lolarious – LOL branches out into its own verb. Not sure what David Cameron’s version would become.

So that’s the latest list – now we sit back and wait to see which of them finally makes it all the way through the selection process.