From Adulting to Textalyzer, via Hygge, Lemmium and Post-Truth: the best official new words of 2016

Zoë Sharp

First of all, a very Happy New Year to everyone. I hope we leave behind the mostly miserable twelve months that was 2016 and step over into the next twelve with better things to look forward to.

In one respect at least, though, 2016 was a good year. It was a good year for new words and a number of them have officially passed into the English language by being accepted into the leading dictionaries. Here are a few of my favourites.

Adulting

Behaving in a responsible and mature way, particularly in regard to the accomplishment of mundane or boring tasks. Also used ironically on social media to highlight behaviour the user actually considers to be childish.

Brexiteer

The mix of ‘Britain’ and ‘exit’ to form Brexit, but in this case to denote someone who supports the UK leaving the European Union. Follows on from ‘Grexit’ with regard to Greece’s membership of the EU.

Clicktivism

Someone who limits their political or societal activism to signing online petitions rather than taking any real-world action.

Coulrophobia

A fear of clowns. People dressed as sinister clowns have been responsible for some serious attacks during 2016, so it's hardly surprising that this word has made the list. The word comes from the Greek kōlobatheron, meaning ‘stilt’ from kolon, ‘limb’, after the fact clowns are sometimes seen on stilts.

Earworm

A song that, regardless of whether you like it or not, gets into your head and stays there, going round and round, all day. It was also the title of a short story I did for the CRIME + MUSIC anthology.

Glass cliff

I’ve found two slightly differing definitions of ‘glass cliff’. One is where a woman or member of a minority group takes up a leadership position under difficult circumstances or where the likelihood of failure is high. The other is for a woman to be selected for a leadership position because the likelihood of failure is high.

HTTP 451

An error code indicating a web page blocked by censorship or a takedown notice. In reference to Ray Bradbury’s novel FAHRENHEIT 451, it can be used by sites to make a computer-friendly political statement.

Hygge

A Danish word to denote a state of happiness and contentment, usually brought about by a roaring log fire, lit candles, warm drinks, and hand-knitted socks. Pronounced something like "HUE-gah".

Lemmium

This was the proposed name for new volatile superheavy chemical element, 115, in honour of Lemmy Kilmister. Lemmy, who died in 2015, was the legendary frontman of heavy metal band, Motörhead. Sadly for fans, the Russians insisted on muscovium instead.

Listicle

An article that takes the form of a list. (Ahem…)

Optic boom

A flash produced when electrons move faster than light, similar to the sonic boom produced by supersonic jets as the break the sound barrier. Physicists believe that it is possible to break the ‘light barrier’ in graphene sheets. The discovery could spark development of optical circuits a million times faster than silicon chips.

Post-truth

This word was Word of the Year 2016 according to Oxford Dictionaries, and has seen a sharp rise in popularity over the past year, despite having been in use for more than a decade. It means ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. With the various elections and referenda that have taken place during 2016, the spike in usage of post-truth is perhaps not surprising …

Quintastic

A merger of the prefix ‘quin’ with ‘fantastic’, used to refer to a fifty-something person who remains smart, energetic, sexy, and successful. Particularly used in relation to someone famous.

Stentrode

An electrode slipped into a cranial blood vessel through a catheter. By transmitting brain signals, it could allow quadriplegics to operate an exoskeleton.

Textalyzer

A gadget that would enable the police to test your phone to see if you were texting before a car crash. As yet, though, it is not designed to gather private information, only whether the phone was in use at the time of the accident.

BORROWED FROM THE BARD: book titles taken from William Shakespeare

Zoë Sharp

Saturday – April 23^rd – was the 400^th anniversary of the death of the Bard, William Shakespeare, arguably the greatest writer in the English language.

By the time he died, in Stratford-upon-Avon, he had written 38 plays and 154 sonnets, as well as a number of other works. He was only 52, although that was considered quite a good run in Elizabethan times, when the life expectancy of the average Londoner was 35.

Shakespeare’s work has been translated into every major living language, and his plays are constantly re-imagined for each generation, bringing new meaning each time. It could easily be said that the themes and schemes and tribulations of his characters are just as relevant today as they were 400 years ago.

His characters, words, and phrases have seeped into everyday life to such an extent that they are everywhere you look. And nowhere more than in the chosen book titles of other authors.

BRAVE NEW WORLD, Aldous Huxley

The title of Huxley’s 1932 science fiction classic is take from lines spoken by Miranda to Ferdinand and his companions in The Tempest:

"O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is!

O brave new world

That hath such people in it"

MacBeth has provided inspiration for many other writers when it comes to naming their work.

Alistair MacLean’s 1973 novel, THE WAY TO DUSTY DEATH comes from MacBeth’s soliloquy when he hears of the death of Lady MacBeth:

“She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.”

THE SOUND AND THE FURY is also the title of William Faulkner’s 1929 novel.

Ellery Queen used DOUBLE, DOUBLE, again from the witches in MacBeth for his 1950 novel:

1 WITCH.

“Round about the caldron go;

In the poison'd entrails throw.—

Toad, that under cold stone,

Days and nights has thirty-one;

Swelter'd venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!”

ALL.

“Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.”

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury’s 1962 dark fantasy takes its title from the second witch in MacBeth:

“By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes. [Knocking]

Open locks,

Whoever knocks!

[Enter MacBeth]

Agatha Christie used a several Shakespeare quotes and references as titles of her novels, including from that same speech in MacBeth:

BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS, 1968

SAD CYPRESS, 1940, from “Come away, death” a song in Twelfth Night

ABSENT IN THE SPRING, 1944, from sonnet 98

THERE IS A TIDE, 1948, (later renamed TAKEN AT THE FLOOD) from Brutus’ speech in Julius Caesar

And her famous play The Mousetrap, 1952, is apparently taken from Hamlet’s answer to Claudius regarding the play the court had just watched.

Erle Stanley Gardner took the title of his 1956 Perry Mason novel THE CASE OF THE GILDED LILY, from a speech made by Salisbury in King John:

“Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,

To guard a title that was rich before,

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,

To throw perfume on the violet,

To smooth the ice, or add another hue

Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,

Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.”

Frederick Forsyth took the title of his 1974 thriller THE DOGS OF WAR from a speech by Marcus Antonius in Julius Caesar:

“And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge,

With Ate by his side come hot from hell,

Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice

Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war,

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth

With carrion men, groaning for burial.”

I’m sure there are plenty more I haven’t listed here. What are your favourite crime novel titles taken from Shakespeare quotes, or do you have a quote for which you have yet to find the right story to fit it?

My own favourite is actually a stage direction from The Winter’s Tale: EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR. I’m sure someone’s beaten me to it, but it’s a great title.

This week’s Word of the week comes from Shakespeare, appropriately enough, and is Anthropophaginian, meaning one who eats human flesh, used in humorous context in The Merry Wives of Windsor:

HOST

“What wouldst thou have, boor? what: thick-skin?

speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.”

SIMPLE

“Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff

from Master Slender.”

HOST

“There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his

standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about

with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go

knock and call; hell speak like an Anthropophaginian

unto thee: knock, I say.”