Macquarie WOTY: pod slurping

[Benjamin Zimmer]

http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/anonymous@F55844536/-/p/dict/WOTY07/index.html

The Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year 2007
The Committee's choice of Word of the Year 2007 is:

pod slurping
 noun the downloading of large quantities of data to an MP3 player or
memory stick from a computer.

In this increasingly tech-savvy world we live in, it seems pod
slurping really is the new memory bank for us busy bees. Why carry
around vast reams of documents, or CDs or anything for that matter,
when you can download absolutely everything!

Pod slurping has an inventive and sensuous appeal. The committee felt
that the most important criterion for word of the year should be
linguistic creativity and evocativeness, rather than simple worthiness
or usefulness. Pod slurping also dips its lid to pod, a potent little
word of our times.

The Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year Committee comprises:

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney, Professor Gavin Brown
 Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney, Professor
Stephen Garton
 Publisher of the Macquarie Dictionary, Susan Butler.

The Committee would like to give honourable mention to:

infomania
 noun the tendency to give immediate attention to incoming messages
such as email, text messages, etc., resulting in constant distraction
and a corresponding drop in the recipient's attention levels and work
performance. [info(rmation) + -mania]
–infomaniac, noun –infomaniacal, adjective

Infomania is a neat coinage for an obsession to which many of us can
so easily succumb, and a word which was created in the early 1980s -
very much ahead of its time.

carbon footprint
 noun the carbon dioxide emissions for which an individual or
organisation can be held responsible, as by their travel, fuel
consumption, diet, energy requirements, etc.

Obviously carbon footprint is one of the environmental words which is
of significance to us all, and a very useful term to express a new
social concept.
The People's Choice Award goes to:

password fatigue
 noun a level of frustration reached by having too many different
passwords to remember, resulting in an inability to remember even
those most commonly used.

Password fatigue was the most popular word in the online voting,
clearly registering a widespread dilemma of the online world.

Popular vote in each category was as follows:

Business: infomania
Carbon Terms: carbon footprint
Colloquialisms: floordrobe
Eating and Drinking: tart fuel
The Environment: food mile
Fashion: arse antlers
General Interest: password fatigue
Health: incidental exercise
Media: fauxtography
Music: nerdcore
Online: cyber cheating
Politics: Great Firewall of China
Social Scene: slummy mummy
Specialist Terms: facial mapping
Sport: cyberathlete
Technology: bloatware

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