It’s April 1st, and we all know what that means – it’s New Words time!
The first new word for your consideration is bike shedding. It refers to the tendency to spend a disproportionate amount of time on trivial matters or decisions because they are easier to consider. The word comes from a fictional example of the phenomenon given by British historian Cyril Parkinson, in which a committee tasked with designing a nuclear power plant spends most of its time discussing how the employee bike shed is to be constructed.
Our next new word has to do with a less subtle way our brains lead us astray. Urge surfing is the use of mindfulness to experience one’s urges without succumbing to them. It contrasts interestingly with a psychological technique that was one of our new words in February, thought stopping. Urge surfing means riding your urges out, whereas thought stopping means blocking them out.
Let’s get into a more positive headspace with the third new word: compersion. It’s the joy one feels when someone one loves finds happiness. Originating in the polyamorous community, where it is often used in reference to one’s partner experiencing love with another, its meaning has apparently broadened and it is sometimes succinctly described as the opposite of jealousy.
Rounding things out, we have parklet, for a moveable arrangement of seating and greenery placed in an on-street parking bay, and aquamation, a method of water cremation using potassium hydroxide.
Have you heard of any of these new words? Do you think they should enter the Macquarie Dictionary?
