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THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: BASIC VOCABULARY: MORE NEOLOGISMS

What is 'kitchen table politics' ? (15-03-99)

The new strategy of the British Conservatives under William Hague, the shadow Prime Minister, to make politics is to go back to the roots, i.e. to make kitchen table politics with 'bread and butter' issues. The kitchen table policy is the answer to an abstract, bureaucratic language from the economy which has been imposed on the educational and health sectors. In Germany such development can also be observed in the field of education where terms like 'Qualitätsmanagement', 'Standards setzen' or 'Profile erstellen' are used, but nobody knows how to realize them in schools.
The two English terms were coined in America and have now intruded into British English. The new strategy is promulgated by W. Hague and consists of the following features:
- the use of language that resonates with voters
- a willingness to listen
- an emphasis on the future, not the past
- a readiness to concede past failings and to move on
- and the importance of integrity


What is 'analysisparalysis' ?

Would you have thought that 18.000 new words from the English-speaking world are created every month ? This does not mean, however, that they all survive. Probably only a few make it to be entered into The Oxford English Dictionary.
The word analysisparalysis is such a word and means the condition you suffer when your decision-making ability is made impossible due to an overwhelming amount of information. A word with a similar meaning is information fatigue syndrome.
Other neologisms and their meanings are as follows:


achiever fever condition that reduces life to a permanent round of work-related activities
road rage/trolley rage/golf rage extreme anger on roads/supermarkets/golf courses
home shopping purchase of goods from home (eg.by cable TV)
ego-surfing searching the Internet for occurences of your own name
grebo British urban youth cult favouring heavy metal and punk rock music
domophobia a severe hostility towards the Millennium Dome (in the Docklands)
microphobes opponents of Microsoft
high-five two people slapping their hand over their heads
A-OK (Am slang) eins a
keyhole surgery invasive Chirugie
videofit Phantombild, das am Bildschirm erstellt wird
traffic calming Verkehrsberuhigung
slaphead jd, der nur wenig o. keine Haare auf d. Kopf hat
to go ballistic an die Decke gehen
downsizing Stellenabbau
ATM (atomated teller machine) Geldautomat, Bankomat
outworker HeimarbeiterIn
EFT (electronic funds transfer) elektronischer Zahlungsverkehr
chill out (Am slang) sich beruhigen, relaxen
gateway drug Einstiegsdroge
technophobe jd, der Technomusik ablehnt
style slave jd, der sich nur nach der neuesten Mode kleidet
odd ball a strange person (komischer Vogel)
street/road pizza flattened body of dead animal on the road
pink-collar job jobs like telephone operator or receptionist (in contrast to white and blue-collar jobs
red-letter day a particularly memorable and important day
spin doctor a public relations expert (usu. with politicians) whose job it is to builod up his employer's reputation or image
money puker an automatic teller machine/cashpoint (Geldautomat)

The U- and Non-U usage of English

U and Non-U stand for upper class and non-upper class usage of English. These categories were introduced by the Birmingham University professor Alan Ross in 1954. The U-English is spoken by the British aristocracy as defined as the roughly 80.000 descendants of the 150 landowning families that were titled before the industrial revolution. Today it is mainly spoken by senior members of the royal family, old Etonians and ageing Oxford and Cambridge dons. It is sounds as well as words that distinguish U- from non-U English. In British aristospeak lost power of the British Empire would sound like lorst pah of the British Empah.

On the other end of the scale stands the London (Cockney) speech, whose prominent feature is the 't-glotalling', which means skipping the 't' in many words. For there is a lot of it about one would hear there's a lo' of i' abou'.
More examples of U and non-U English:


upper class non-upper class
mackintosh raincoat
jam preserves
Upper class slang received pronunciation
bumf paper documents, junk mail, corporate news
brill brilliant
for yonks for a long time
bolter husband or wife who bolts from a marriage
bounder person of anti-social behaviour
crispies money
stiffies party invitations



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