The English language has done a fairly commendable job of keeping up with a rapidly changing world, in recent decades. I believe this is due, in large part, to the ingenuity of young people, and the ubiquity of social-media platforms.
Let’s start with my favourite: the deliciously mischievous “password child”, for the favourite child that inspires most of a parent’s passwords. I also like Novid, for its currency; that’s the term for someone who has never had Covid. (Does such
The English language has done a fairly commendable job of keeping up with a rapidly changing world, in recent decades. I believe this is due, in large part, to the ingenuity of young people, and the ubiquity of social-media platforms.
Let’s start with my favourite: the deliciously mischievous “password child”, for the favourite child that inspires most of a parent’s passwords. I also like Novid, for its currency; that’s the term for someone who has never had Covid. (Does such a person even exist?)
A good forward-looking one is the term for a generation not yet born. After Gen Alpha (born 2012 to 2025), it will be Gen Beta, born 2026 to 2039.
In keeping with the issues of the day, a rash of terms are emerging out of the climate crisis. There’s “heat storm”, for a spell of several days of extremely hot weather and high humidity. “Global boiling”, used by the United Nations secretary-general António Guterres in July, to describe the intensifying increase in global temperatures. “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived,” as he put it.
Concern for the planet’s health, and our survival on it, has brought us “regenivore”, for a person trying to limit the damage done to the environment through their food choices. And “sustainatarian”, a person who only eats foods that do not ravage the land on which they were grown.
In the world of tech, there is “AIgiarism”, drawn from plagiarism. This is the act of surreptitiously using AI tools where the use of such tools is frowned upon or prohibited, such as in college essays.
I haven’t known what to make of some terms. These include “salt tooth”, the term for a liking of savoury foods such as crisps and chips (Isn’t this a universal norm? I always thought it was). And “girl dinner”, which seems simply to mean a meal for one that may or may not have involved chaos cooking (the use of different types of food not normally eaten together).
There are always new terms being born when it comes to relationships. Try “untyping”, to indicate a romance begun with someone who isn’t one’s usual type. And “nearlyweds”, for people who live together or have an otherwise shared life, but no visible plans to enter into matrimony.
There’s also the deliciously complex and telling “ghostlighting”. This is when one person ghosts the other, returns after a period, then gaslights their partner into believing they were never ghosted.
Two terms that aren’t quite as new, but that I find particularly endearing: “shift shock”, for the disappointment of starting a new job only to discover that it isn’t as good (or different) as one had hoped. And “ghost work”, which is the term for tasks performed by humans, typically online and for low pay, that are so mundane and repetitive that most people think were performed by a bot.
It’s a lot to take in, I know. Relax with a soft hike (a long walk amid nature that involves no speed, elevation or uneven terrain), or retreat to the spathroom (a bathroom designed to serve as an in-house spa).
(Adam Jacot de Boinod is the author of The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World)
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