AUSTERITY FOR BEGINNERS ( and the meaning of other words )

Every so often, certain words and phrases come into ‘vogue’ and become fashionable, almost like ‘linguistic lifestyle accessories’.

All of a sudden they assume something approaching ‘cult’ status, tripping off the tongue and joining the ‘street talk’ of not just the inhabitants of ivory towers - and that includes the media - but also the proletariat struggling to deal with the cryptic crossword of life.

These ‘anointed’ words join the linguistic equivalent of the Eurozone and become part of the common currency of everyday language. They emerge head and shoulders above other words to epitomise the mood of the moment. Their ‘time’ has come.

In this era of celebrity, fifteen minutes of fame is not simply confined to the winner of ‘Big Brother’ or the latest graduate from ‘bimbo school’ being hounded and photographed by the paparazzi as she cuts her toenails in public.

Did you know that words have their own ‘beauty contest’. According to Wikipedia (a relatively new word in itself) “Merriam-Webster's Dictionary named the word "austerity" as its "Word of the Year" for 2010 because of the number of web searches this word generated that year.

According to the president and publisher of the dictionary, "austerity had more than 250,000 searches on the dictionary's free online [website] tool" and the spike in searches "came with more coverage of the debt crisis".
No sooner than the world goes into the worst depression since the 1930’s than the word ‘austerity’ is ‘elevated to the peerage’ … a word among words that more than any other describes, encapsulates and symbolises the sorry mess we’re in.

Welcome to austerity – and what lies behind the meaning of words.