Tuesday 26 March 2013

Neologisms 7


Boris is in PR overdrive as he goes in to high gear chortling bumble mode to pretend he's laughing off yesterday's disastrous interview. (Woodo/‏@woodo79)

Ep 2 of a mandible-dropping series. (Matthew Sweet on a BBC programme on insects)

the frantically riffing throngs of Twitter (jezebel.com)

Barbara Stanwyck as the definitively amoral Phyllis Dietrichson, an icy schemer with the conscience of a cobra and a heart of pure anthracite… (classicimages.com)

clutching their pearls (for over-reacting) Deborah Orr

To firehose money at projects that haven’t been scoped out. (Boris Johnson, Feb 2013)

the Twittergraph

Agreeing to a gym session before the lark has even put his contact lenses in or had his cup of coffee, seemed like a stellar idea at the time. (@lorrainepascale)

banlieueification (Douglas Murphy)

High frequency trading is very difficult to corset, to manage. (Quote in Guardian Jan 28 2013 – the only way you can stop it is to rip the cable out of the computer)

Hallmark-card philosophy
(as tweeted by Alain de Botton) (@ballardian/Dr Simon Sellars)

I also hate the tights-over-skates, but I fear that ship has sailed. (@fuggirls)

ghastly grandstands (cliff-like flats with a “stunning panoramic view of the river”)

The Big Society lies at the bottom of the ocean. (Paul Richards @ProgressOnline)

There is hardly a sheet of Bronco between the teams. (Tim Wonnacott on Bargain Hunt)

Everyone south of Madonna...

In finance, dark pools of liquidity (also referred to as dark liquidity or simply dark pools or black pools) is trading volume or liquidity that is not openly available to the public.

the golf club fringe of conservatism (Telegraph Dec 2012)

cake boxes and jewel cases (CD boxes and cases)

My grammatical knowledge has rusted right through. (@sashalu)

high/low mashups for heteroglossa (or mixing a ballgown with Doc Martens, wearing pearls with a boiler suit, teaming cashmere with jeans)

shamelessly ambitious politicos who’d happily trade an aunt on eBay for a Parliamentary seat (Owen Jones)

It sounds like Morsi is planning to go the full Akhenaten. (@holland_tom/Tom Holland, Nov 27 2012)

More neologisms and coinages here. And here, here, here and here. And here. And here.

2 comments:

  1. I love some of these, but how old can it be and still be a neologism? I'm sure that "to firehose" has been around in US English for a good few years, and "that ship has sailed" was in common US usage 20-odd years ago (to judge from Google Books).

    Jewel case has been around almost as long as CDs, though I guess that isn't saying much!

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  2. Good checking! They're just new to me.

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