Picture a skewered Malteser, the treat a novelty on the language radar.
asserted
treat → picture → radar
Around September, dictionaries like America’s Merriam-Webster get a glow-up (another newbie) by looksmaxxing (a third) their database, adding some new 1400 words.
asserted
dictionaries → get → words
Food overall has been restless, the menu extended by chilli crisp, bao bun and a Japanese pepper called shishito.
asserted
menu → extend → crisp
Far less tasty is promposal, a date you take to your year 12 dance.
asserted
you → take → dance
Though copium is handier, a hybrid of cope and opium, the stuff of stubborn optimism despite worsening news.
asserted
copium → worsen → news
Much of Merriam’s intake is the obvious, as often happens in Lexi-Land.
asserted
Much → happen → Land
Terms like yacht rock have seemed to be around since Steely Dan first crooned.
asserted
Dan → seem → rock
Ditto for neckbeard and whack-a-mole, Rickroll and Mandela effect – a syndrome where hordes share one false memory.
asserted
hordes → share → memory
Cuffing season does not relate to mass arrests or bedroom play but a pre-winter phase compelling singles to pair up, the dating equivalent of swooping season minus the maggies.
asserted
season → relate → maggies
Meanwhile shapewear explains itself, as does the weekday worker’s bout of Sunday scaries.
asserted
bout → explain → scaries
But let’s get back to -maxxing, that suffix busy “promposing” a dozen stems across the dictionary.
asserted
suffix → let → dictionary
Back in August, The Guardian’s Tim Dowling built a true/false quiz of 20 possible -maxxing match-ups, from Catholicmaxxing (exploiting RC iconography) to hobbitmaxxing (living a simpler, barefoot life).
asserted
Dowling → build → life
To save you the gotcha, all 20 were legit citations, including whimsymaxxing and bootymaxxing (alias bum-maxxing in the UK).
asserted
20 → save → UK
Ridic, you say.
asserted
you → say → ?
Or ridiculous, if you’re over 30.
asserted
you → ’re → 30
Yet I predict a few maxxes will make the haul into 2027, even if serving as rage bait, where editing now answers to textmaxxing, or a swim session is lapmaxxing, just to rankle the purists.
asserted
session → predict → purists
Staying at the pool, I applaud the work of Bilal El-Hayek, the lord mayor of Canterbury-Bankstown, for hastening a new piece of slang into English.
asserted
I → stay → English
Only last week his council authorised pool staff to eject anybody wearing smart glasses, adding, “There’s a buzz and growing anger in the community about the increasing use of AI smart glasses, or ‘pervert glasses’.”
asserted
council → authorise → glasses
AI, of course, is the other accelerant when it comes to coining words.
asserted
it → come → words
This month, on quitting Anthropic, researcher Jacob Coxon predicted an AI apocalypse “could kill us all by the end of the decade”.
uncertain
apocalypse → quit → decade
Overnight the commentariat went into ethicsmaxxing (a word, claimed the Guardian quiz) as word nerds took to brainstorming, seeking an apt label for the doomsday scenario.
asserted
nerds → go → scenario
Though even Miles Dyson – the movie’s engineer at Cyberdyne – tries to unplug the killer robot.
asserted
Dyson → try → robot
The sexy apocalypse is another phrase angling for traction, as somehow this encroaching hell storm owns a new-world rizz (charisma) in the eyes of some, compared to the humdrum bleakness (relief centres, water rations) of your average disaster.
asserted
storm → angle → disaster
Ever helpful, AI itself is more than ready to suggest names for its own eradication of humankind, from data-geddon to code-quake, from silicon supremacy to The Great Rewrite.
asserted
AI → suggest → Rewrite
- How card games shuffled the everyday language of sports
- TV or Not TV: our favourite two-letter word’s identity crisis
- Fifty shades of … what?
asserted
games → shuffle → what
The absurd quest to name colours
- How a regional Instagram account is recording the latest entrants in the Aussie lexicon
- Out of the box: The grammatical nightmare keeping me awake
- Are you using the latest slang or are you just reheating nachos?
- The catchy nature of viral names
asserted
you → name → names
The Aporia
