Your top ten blogs of 2016
Counting down from popularity, here’s what you and the rest of Australia (and the world) wanted to know about in 2016. Read more…
Blogs
Odd encounters with inflected forms
The English language has the capacity to create new forms, often by fusing two existing words to create one word with a new meaning, such as gasbag or chinwag. This is by far the most common way of expanding our lexicon. Read more…
Should these words go in the Macquarie Dictionary?
We are always on the lookout for new, emerging and interesting words to add to the Macquarie Dictionary. In a time of global instant communication, these words are popping up faster and in vaster quantities than ever before. Read more…
Words that last
Recently I gave a talk at Nunawading Library in Melbourne. The discussion afterwards was on various current usage problems, including the use of the word literally as a marker of emphasis with no real meaning but a functionality that seems to be much enjoyed by many people in spoken and written language… Read more…
How well do you know your phobias?
How well do you know your phobias? Take the Halloween edition phobia quiz to find out!
Wibble-wobble and boing
My attention has been drawn to the creation of the new verb, to wibble-wobble, meaning ‘to prevaricate’. This is a contribution of Mathias Cormann who made reference to the nursery rhyme, Jelly on a Plate which has the verse… Read more…
Should these words go in the Macquarie Dictionary?
We are always on the lookout for new, emerging and interesting words to add to the Macquarie Dictionary. In a time of global instant communication, these words are popping up faster and in vaster quantities than ever before. Read more…
Should these words go in the Macquarie Dictionary?
We are always on the lookout for new, emerging and interesting words to add to the Macquarie Dictionary. In a time of global instant communication, these words are popping up faster and in vaster quantities than ever before. Read more…
Entertaining, obscure sports
Here at the Macquarie Dictionary, we put our heads together and came up with a few overlooked sports that we think would be perfect in the next games. Read more…
English words of Indigenous origin for NAIDOC Week
This NAIDOC Week, we celebrated Indigenous culture by highlighting some of the many words that have become a part of Australian English from various Indigenous languages. Read more…
Should these words go in the Macquarie Dictionary?
We are always on the lookout for new, emerging and interesting words to add to the Macquarie Dictionary. In a time of global instant communication, these words are popping up faster and in vaster quantities than ever before. Read more…
Poképunning while we play Pokémon Go
Not so long ago, the world was swept up in the all-consuming new gaming phenomenon of Pokémon Go. Unless you live in a very remote, secluded area, you will have seen the evidence of Pokémania… Read more…
Ever been phubbed?
A few years ago an executive from the McCann advertising agency approached me with an idea to document the process of the coining of a new word. He had a social phenomenon in mind for which he wished to find a word… Read more…
Reflecting Australia’s gerrys
A friend of mine in Singapore reported that the Singaporean government has taken up the term pioneer to refer to anyone old enough to have contributed to Singapore’s early nationhood from 1955 onwards. Pioneers… Read more…
Ligers and tigons and grolar bears, oh my!
The grolar bear was added to the dictionary in 2015, and before you ask, no, we didn’t make it up. Read more…
Are you prepped enough for doomsday?
Doomsday, Judgement Day, or the Apocalypse, whatever you want to call it, the strategy of being prepared for an unknown disaster is now becoming more
Should these words go in the Macquarie Dictionary?
We are always on the lookout for new, emerging and interesting words to add to the Macquarie Dictionary. In a time of global instant communication, these words are popping up faster and in vaster quantities than ever before. Read more…
Our favourite invented portmanteaus from members of the Australian Writers’ Centre
The Australian Writers’ Centre recently held a competition asking for the best invented portmanteau. They awarded their winners, but we’ve trawled through the entries and found some favourites of our own. Read more…