Welcome to another edition of our monthly new words blog where we introduce some of the trendy new words our editorial team are tracking.
With several major cities around the country reliving lockdown in recent weeks, the Aussie public have again used their time at home to invent new pandemic-related slang. Do you have dick-nose? It isn’t as rude as it sounds. Dick-nose means to wear a face mask so that the mouth is covered but the nose sticks out over the top. Perhaps you’re stuck in locky d (that’s lockdown) contemplating the problem of vaccine hesitancy, that is, a reluctance or delay in receiving a vaccine when one is available, often due to concern that a vaccine may be unsafe, ineffective or unnecessary. And of course the divisive term for the vaccine rollout in Australia, a strollout.
Perhaps you chat with your family about these issues, conversing in your familect, that is, a language used within a family, usually comprising of the background language along with some altered or introduced vocabulary items. Maybe you are concerned about infobesity: information overload, a word that brings to mind the 2020 Word of the Year winner doomscrolling.
The final new word on our radar is main character syndrome. Do you see the world as a book or a movie with yourself credited with the starring role? In other words, do you think the universe revolves around you? If so, you may suffer from main character syndrome. To all the supporting characters and extras out there, don’t worry, we think you’re all stars!
