The English language is notoriously fast in adapting to the changing world.
New words enter English from every area of life where they represent and
describe the changes and developments that take place from day to day.
Here are some words and expressions that have been coined in recent years.
Speed dating - A method of meeting a potential romantic partner by talking to a group of individuals at an organised event. Participants are rotated to meet each other for no more than eight minutes. They then move on to the next person. At the end they indicate whether they are interested in any of the people they have met.
Spinnish - The language used by spin doctors, spokes-persons, campaign managers, etc. when trying to present information in a favourable light.
Staycation - A vacation in which you stay at home and relax or visit places close to where you live.
Street food - Food prepared and sold by vendors in a street or a public location for immediate consumption.
Subprime/sub-prime - The adjective subprime describes a risky loan, or lending money at a higher rate of interest to borrowers who have a poor credit history.
Sudoku - A number placement puzzle consisting of a grid of nine 3-by-3 squares. Each row, column and square must contain only one instance of the numbers 1 to 9.
Textonym - A word produced by predictive text software when you press a combination of numbers on the keypad of a mobile phone.
Textspeak - Language used in text messages consisting of abbreviations, acronyms, initials, emoticons, etc.
Textual harassment - Sending text messages to mobile phones which insult or abuse people.
Tombstoning - Jumping or diving into water from a dangerously high place such as a hotel balcony, a cliff, bridge, wall, roof, etc.
Trashion - Blend of 'trash' and 'fashion'. Fashionable items created from old, used and recycled elements.
Trekkie - A fan of the TV science fiction series Star Trek.
Tribal marketing - Marketing strategy which consists in using the social behaviour of certain groups ('tribes') of consumers (e.g. surfers, rappers) to promote a product or service. Very often used by clothing and accessory brands.
Tweeps - Blend of 'Twitter' and 'peeps' (people).
Users who follow you on Twitter.
Tweet - People who 'tweet' send short messages via the microblogging service Twitter.
Tweetheart - A user of the Twitter service who is very popular or admired, or with whom other users communicate a lot.
Tweet seats - Seats in a theatre or concert hall given to people who wish to tweet during the performance.
Twintern Blend of 'Twitter' and 'intern' - а person, usually a student or recent graduate, employed by a company to promote its products or services on Twitter or other social media.
Twitterati - People who frequently use the social networking site Twitter.
Trolling - Being provocatively rude or insulting on the Internet in order to cause anger or conflict in an online community such as a blog, chat room or discussion forum.
Unfollow - Stop receiving another's person's messages on Twitter.
Unfriend Remove someone from your list of friends on social networks such as Facebook.
Upskill - Teach an employee new or additional skills.
UX - Short for 'user experience'.
Videophile - Person who is very interested in watching videos and making recordings, and values high-quality results.
Viral marketing - Marketing strategy that consists in encouraging people to pass along information to friends, family and colleagues through e-mail messages, blogs, video-sharing, etc., so that the marketing message spreads like a virus.
Vook - A combination of video, text, images and social streams in an electronic book.
Web rage - Anger or frustration as a result of difficulties or problems encountered when using the Internet.
Weblish - A form of English that is used on the web (use of abbreviations, acronyms, small letters, absence of punctuation and hyphens etc.) Also known as : webspeak, netspeak, internetese.
Widget - Blend of 'window' and 'gadget'. A small application or tool that can be installed and executed within a web page.
Wiki - A web page which allows multiple users to contribute to its content. The most well-known is the website Wikipedia.
Winterval - Blend of 'winter' and 'festival'. A festival that takes place in winter.
Wordle - The words of a piece of text arranged into a sort of graphic. The more frequent a particular word appears in the text, the bigger its size in the wordle. (Also called 'word cloud' or 'text cloud'.)
Zumba - A fitness activity which combines lively international music with dance exercises.