WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE

Only in France where there is still violent antipathy for universal computer language thus in the land of claret and frogs “software” = “logiciel”;  “spread sheet” = “tableur”; “byte” = “octet”. No one of course takes any notice but rules are rules – sorry - Les règles sont les règles.

Meanwhile, our own language is changing fast and interesting new words like  ‘selfie’ are appearing in the new Oxford English Dictionary. A ‘selfie’, by the way, is a photograph of yourself shot by you – sounds rather masturbatory to me.

Some other words which make it now include ‘FOMO’ which means  fear of missing out - the very worst neurosis of 2013 and a great one for someone who was in advertising,  ‘buzzworthy’ which speaks for itself.

In fact, the new world is awash with words like ‘squee’ which means the sound a ‘fangirl’ makes when squealing ‘omg’ and ‘twerking’ which is what Miley Cyrus did on MTV. The OED definition is "to dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance." What elegant language the OED uses - twerking sounds fun too.

There have always been linguistic oddities like a teenage daughter unfamiliar with the word ‘pedestal’ who conjured up the feasome concept of a ‘pedal-stool’. One envisages Margaret Thatcher in her pomp being put upon a three legged stool with wheels and pedals, her legs pumping away like crazy in front of an astonished Cabinet crying out -  ‘watch out….here she comes’.

In the end pedal-stooling might actually beat skate boarding as a craze.

Then there was one I saw recently - ’scape goat’ which  is a word with biblical orgins , a goat that was sacrificed, bearing the sins of others. But someone, unfamilar with the word ‘scape’ called them ‘escape goats’ – only, of course, they didn’t escape. They got killed.

Mary Anderson invented the windscreen wiper I heard on QI but our daughter, when young, called them ‘wipe screamers’ which is, of course, a perfect description of a worn-out windscreen wiper that makes that odious squeal (or squee) as it moves across the glass.

There are three new words for the business lexicon :-

Tactics when done against a very exacting timescale are ‘tictics’.

Strategy when created in an adversial and ill humoured meeting is called ‘scrategy’

And negative-thinking, disuptors of meetings  make ‘unputs’ to the content in meetings.

The next time I’m asked what I’ll be doing on holiday I’ll have a ready response :- 

‘Eating, drinking, walking and having fun and doing just a bit of ‘twerking’.