NAKED CITY: A GLOSSARY OF UNWANTED WORDS!
Every year the Macquarie Dictionary inducts new words into its online version and anoints one such inclusion as, “the word of the year.” Regrettably the word most favoured to be awarded the 2012 gong is “fracking,” a sad indictment of the pernicious spread of cold seam gas.
As evil as this word might sound, nobody can deny that it has slipped into common usage and it certainly deserves its place in the vocabulary of the 21st century, if only to scare the hell out of us. But what about those words that no longer have any real meaning or are just so goddam annoying that they need to be purged from the modern day lexicon? It’s unlikely the Macquarie will ever start kicking words out, just because they are dopey, overused and stupid, but here at the Naked City we would have no trouble in removing numerous words from our everyday speak – just for that very reason. Here is our glossary of words that need to be obliterated from every dictionary on the planet and silenced from the mouths of all impressionable youth.
Awesome: It once defined something truly awe inspiring, like the Big Bang itself, but is now tossed off to describe anything from the new iPhone to a simple favour done by a friend.
Bespoke: It’s a fancy word used to describe something made to a buyer’s specifications a kind of snobby opposite to ‘off the rack’. Blame Kevin McLoud in the TV show Grand Designs for dropping it with the unfortunate frequency of those with uncontrollable flatulence.
Barista: Come on now, this is just a dude that pulls coffees.
Celebrity: Like a kind of incessant verbal diarrhoea this word spews from the mouths of TV presenters, tabloid journos and radio jocks to describe any bimbo, himbo, one hit wonder or piece of Who Weekly fodder. Celebrities are stalked by the paparazzi, get invited to A-list parties and sell their wedding pics to Woman’s Day. The rest of us are just fracking nobodies!
Designer: When applied to an item of apparel, think something conceived in Paris or New York, but knocked up in a sweat shop in India or China and then flogged for a totally exorbitant price.
Mojo: Originally a charm bag used in voodoo but now employed to describe the possession of positive powers as in, “he’s now got his mojo back”. Hey, has anybody told him his “charm bag” contains a frog’s head and a doll with a pin through its head.
Toxic: When we were kids ‘toxic’ just meant poisonous, like a packet of Ratsak (i.e. don’t put it in your mouth), but it’s now used to describe everything from the former NSW State Labor government to a bunch of text messages from Peter Slipper.
Unique: The word originally meant one of a kind but we now have ‘very unique’ and even ‘almost unique’. Well is it – or isn’t it?
Viral: Once it was only diseases like malaria and hepatitis that sprung to mind when this word was dropped – now it’s everything from YouTube clips, Facebook postings and Gangnam Style that are going viral. Maybe when antibiotics finally fail and the new black plague threatens all of humanity, we will start reverting to its original usage.
THE HIT LIST: Continental Robert Susz takes his Soul Kinda Feeling Revue to Blue Beat on Saturday 24 November, reinventing the hits of the Dynamic Hepnotics with an all star band and DJ Coffin Ed. www.bluebeat.com
