10 January 2008

Suffer from password fatigue, infomania or man flu?

The Fairfax and Murdoch media report on the quest for theMacquarie Dictionary Word of the Year 2007 .

From News.com.au:

"Tanorexia" refers to an obsession with a suntan, while a "salad dodger" is an obese person.

Other nominations for the Macquarie Dictionary Online include "infomania", for those who constantly put aside the job at hand to concentrate on incoming email and text messages.

"Password fatigue" is frustration from having too many passwords to recall.

Casting aside the personal, someone who spreads their clothes around the house, clean or otherwise, is said to be treating the room as a "floordrobe".

Or if the global credit crunch is hitting home, you may be tempted into becoming a "credit card tart", or someone who shifts loans around from one credit card to pay for another.

In business, the "glass cliff" refers to people placed in jobs with high risk of failure because they belong to a group not well represented in leadership positions, such as women.

Even geopolitics gets a mention, with "Chindia" joining China and India, at least in Australish English, in terms of their fast growing strategic and economic clout in the world.

The "Great Firewall of China" noun refers to the block preventing Chinese internet users from accessing online sites deemed undesirable by the Chinese government. To get around it may take a "cyberathlete", or professional computer game player.

Susan Butler, the dictionary's publisher, said environmental themes were hot this year in a time of global warming, with "climate canary" referring to a geographical feature, plant or animal species pointing to climate change.

"Toad juice" refers to a liquid fertiliser produced in Australia from pulverised cane toads, an introduced environmental pest marching its way across the continent. To vote for their favourite word, Ms Butler said people should visit macquariedictionary.com.au.


There are 17 categories, each with five nominations. One winner from each category will be chosen.

Voting closes on 31 January, so check out the website and have your say!

Update 11 January

News of the quest has travelled beyond beyond these shores.

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