Oxford’s Words in a Sentence

Ever since I read the list of words shortlisted for Oxford Dictionaries word of the year, I couldn’t help but wonder if we can combine all those words in a meaningful sentence. Here is my try. If you manage to write one of your own and would like to share it, please ping back to this post or tag it as #WordsOfTheYearSentence.

For reference, here are those words.

hygge, n.

mass noun] a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture)

Brexiteer

British informal a person who is in favour of the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union

Latinx, n. and adj.

Noun: a person of Latin American origin or descent (used as a gender-neutral or non-binary alternative to Latino or Latina)

coulrophobia, n.

extreme or irrational fear of clowns

adulting

[mass noun] informal the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks

chatbot

a computer program designed to simulate a conversation with human users, especially over the Internet

glass cliff, n.

used with reference to a situation in which a woman or member of a minority group ascends to a leadership position in challenging circumstances where the risk of failure is high.

alt-right, n.

(in the US) an ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate deliberately controversial content.

woke, adj.

US informal alert to injustice in society, especially racism.

Here is my Sentence (you can use the words in any order) (if there are any mistakes please do let me know)

The hygge in my life was messed up this year when I woke to first the brexiteer’s rejoicing and then later the alt-right groups creating trouble for Latinx and other races and minorities making people fear them more than their fear of coulrophobia and wondering when the women will stop falling off the glass cliff and wishing that people grow beyond basic adulting and help us look forward in the future with some hope so that we don’t end up taking orders from a chatbot .

Miks

Don’t confuse it with Mix or anything like that, even though they do sound the same. But this is how Mx is pronounced. What is Mx ? This a gender neutral title or in other words, an honorific that does not indicate any gender. So along with Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss etc., we also have Mx now. This was news to me. But looks like Royal Bank of Scotland has already started to use this in their forms.

There a couple more according to this Wikipedia article on Gender Neutral Title. English sure has evolved a lot now, hasn’t. Instead of figuring out new titles, why don’t we just get rid of them?

Quotable Discussion!

An imaginary discussion about my excessive usage of ! ,

F. Scott Fitzgerald: ‘Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.’

Albert Einstein: ‘There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.’ Clearly she looks life the other way.

Terry Pratchett: As long as she knows that ‘Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.’

Joey Santiago: Well, ‘It’s always nice to end your sentences with an exclamation mark, and not a comma.’

Must you question everything! 

 

:lol:

You know that word (Face with Tears of Joy)  or 😆 is the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 ?

According to this blog post from their website, among a list of other words like lumbersexual (huh?!) , refugee (really? isnt that in the dictionary already? ) , ad blocker (good lord!) , dark web (I give up, after this!), sharing economy, they, brexit, on fleek etc,  this emoji 😆 (aka face with tears of joy emoji) was chosen to be the Word of the Year! They say

“Emojis are no longer the preserve of texting teens – instead, they have been embraced as a nuanced form of expression, and one which can cross language barriers.”

I should agree to it, because now that my texting frequency has increased over the past couple of months (will let you know why, later) I find myself using the emoji’s when I am either rendered speechless or when I don’t know if words would convey what I feel. Its all good and all, but I am not really very sure if I would have considered it for the Word of the Year category. What do you think ?
If I had to vote for a word from their list, I would have gone with ‘refugee’ or even ‘lumbersexual’ (if we can have hetereosexual why not this one heh). What would have been your choice? Here is the list from that article.

ad blocker, noun: A piece of software designed to prevent advertisements from appearing on a web page.

Brexit, noun: A term for the potential or hypothetical departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union, from British + exit.

Dark Web, noun: The part of the World Wide Web that is only accessible by means of special software, allowing users and website operators to remain anonymous or untraceable.

on fleek, adjectival phrase: Extremely good, attractive, or stylish.

lumbersexual, noun: A young urban man who cultivates an appearance and style of dress (typified by a beard and check shirt) suggestive of a rugged outdoor lifestyle.

refugee, noun: A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

sharing economy, noun: An economic system in which assets or services are shared between private individuals, either for free or for a fee, typically by means of the Internet.

they (singular), pronoun: Used to refer to a person of unspecified sex.

Mrs or Ms – Which to use

I never liked the word ‘Mrs’. Never. I don’t know why. I preferred Ms. ever since I knew that it can be used to address a woman irrespective of her marital status. But I never really knew why we have a Miss, Mrs and a new Ms for that matter. It was just known that we address all men as Mr. and married women as Mrs. and unmarried women as Miss. May be I thought it was unfair that men get to be addressed by only one prefix whereas women had to change their prefixes based on their marital status. I am not sure the reasons I had at that time. But now I think I prefer to be addressed as Ms forever, especially after reading this article, What is Mrs. short for?. Whoa! The etymology of those words !

If you happen to read that article, make sure to read the comments too, which are more entertaining.

“The greater part of the world’s troubles are due to questions of grammar.” ― Michel de Montaigne,