Word of the Year 2007
175 Responses
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My entry for most hated phrase is "World Class".
I missed this when Ben first listed it, but this is one of my favourite love-to-hate phrases.
My theory is that it's actually used when someone is comparing New Zealand with Australia but doesn't want to it look like petty trans-Tasman rivalry.
"Queen Street will soon have world-class paving stones along the footpath, just like in Sydney and Melbourne!"
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Thus far we have:
its Business Time
Can I please nominate "Apostrophe-catastrophe" for word of the year?
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Can I please nominate "Apostrophe-catastrophe" for word of the year?
I's that cau'se you luuurrrvvveee the apo'strophe's or becau'se you hate's them?
Personally, I wouldn't shop at a greengrocer's that didn't have at least three gratuitous apostrophes - anything less shows a lack of professional pride in a historic mercantile tradition.
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Nice one Garth, I like sub-prime too.
It puts me in mind of our shift from a basic Sky TV package to Freeview earlier this year. Once we'd plugged everything back in I realised that we were now in a sub-prime state. Or perhaps that should be sans-Prime...
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Great list, Graeme.
How could we have forgotten (so far)...
xtra service
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And three more words or phrases which I think indicate nothing more than the paucity of the speaker's vocabulary
yeah right
gutted
stoked
I would be delighted if I never, ever hear or read them again.
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xtra service is very salt, but I think the sentiment is covered by sub-prime.
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Godwin, the verb, more by virtue of demonstration than usage. There was someone at the EFB protest wielding a swastika banner; it feels to me that NZ politics has become so rabidly polarised, and the media get so histrionic, that every little argument gets ramped up to a godwin stalemate really quickly now.
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For those seeking inspiration, here's the Google zeitgeist for New Zealand in 2007.
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Godwin, the verb, more by virtue of demonstration than usage. There was someone at the EFB protest wielding a swastika banner; it feels to me that NZ politics has become so rabidly polarised, and the media get so histrionic, that every little argument gets ramped up to a godwin stalemate really quickly now.
Mr Litterick of the Fundy Post has an intriguing account of Protest Saturday in Auckland.
He goes to these things so you don't have to.
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@ deborah
yeah right
someone you know tried to sneak that into a cabinet paper.
got pretty close, apparently.
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'Bombshell'. Something that a person drops, causing all manner of shock and surprise.
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Mr Litterick of the Fundy Post has an intriguing account of Protest Saturday in Auckland.
He goes to these things so you don't have to.
Interesting how recent events have brought out both the far-left and far-right elements in society. Maybe they all could do well to browse a Cronulla Beach real estate brochure or two.
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'Bombshell'. Something that a person drops, causing all manner of shock and surprise.
In the context of the terrorism business, shouldn't that be "Bombershell"?
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I'm 100% behind sub prime. It sums up a series of sporting achievements (rugby, cricket, netball, that stupid thing with the sailing boats), legislative attempts (EFB, Section 59 repeal), the actions of various people around October 15th.
It just feels like the year that "wasn't really".
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Graeme - you missed Coldplay, but that's ok because Clocked is better.
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gutted
You know what's the weirdest thing about "gutted"? Some people spell it "guttered". I assume they're thinking it means "I felt so low, it was as if I had been kicked to the gutter," which probably makes more sense to them than feeling like you'd been disembowelled.
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Robyn Gallagher wrote:
Some people spell it "guttered"
Oh, don't get me started on 'guttered' and its ilk. I seem to be surrounded by people who suffer from some weird pseudo-homonym dyslexia...
"One 'foul' swoop" (or even "one 'fowl' swoop") instead of "one fell swoop"
"On 'tenderhooks'" instead of "on tenterhooks"
etc., etc.
A recent favourite is "I wouldn't 'trust' him with a ten foot barge pole". Which, actually, is kind of an improvement on the original, now that I think of it.
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Some people spell it "guttered".
I am speakerless.
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Robyn Gallagher wrote:
Some people spell it "guttered"
Oh, don't get me started on 'guttered' and its ilk. I seem to be surrounded by people who suffer from some weird pseudo-homonym dyslexia...
"One 'foul' swoop" (or even "one 'fowl' swoop") instead of "one fell swoop"
"On 'tenderhooks'" instead of "on tenterhooks"
etc., etc.
A recent favourite is "I wouldn't 'trust' him with a ten foot barge pole". Which, actually, is kind of an improvement on the original, now that I think of it.
Hear hear, David. Or as some people would put it... here here.
My own personal homophone arch-nemesis is 'without further adieu'.
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DPF has just made up a beauty in this post on the Electoral Finance Bill amendments
fillybusters
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"without further adieu" I think began as a joke on some British comedy show, where all the characters, who were French, bid each other 'adieu' and the announce came in with "without further adieu..."
Personal hate in this field though: saying someone "flaunted the law". A few years ago someone on NatRad news used to say this all the time. Unless they mean someone waved a law book around showily - which could happen - what they're trying to say is 'flout'
A personal favourite was a flatmate, many years ago, who was challenged about her indecisiveness over some matter or other and who proclaimed imperiously "its a woman's provocative to change her mind".
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I like fillybusters.
It's what happens when you flog a dead horse.
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"One 'foul' swoop" (or even "one 'fowl' swoop") instead of "one fell swoop"
Can't be bothered looking this up, but isn't "foul" the modern spelling of "fell" anyway?
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So then I looked it up
<quote>MACDUFF: [on hearing that his family and servants have all been killed]
All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?<quote>Kite = hunting bird, Fell = fierce, savage.
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