No, I don't mean new product names like Android, or lazy-ppl abbrvs like apps for xmpl.
I refer to words like liquifaction, known only too well to Christchurch residents... but obviously not well enough by the powers-that-be before the two big EQs.
Then there was graupel, the strange pseudo-snow that got Auckland all a-tizz and had the rest of NZ yawning.
And following the overcrowding debacle and the Adidas marketing mess in the *yawn* Rugby World Cup lead-up, where once ruggernauts talked about line-out throws and the make up of the back three over a doz, now they recline on lazyboys with pinot discussing sports execs’ crisis communication techniques.
Our national marketing gurus changed one word and spent up large: it's now all "100% Pure You".
A colourful name on our news horizon last year: Harold Camping, announcing the end of the world: going once, going twice...and while talking "nutters", scratch one off the vocab list: Qaddafi. His famous last words: "What have I ever done to you?"
Back home, Alisdair talked tampons while Ratana spelt "false prophet" with just four letters. We struggled to explain to overseas friends why mythical monsters got backhanders to stop obstructing railway tunnels: the word taniwha means "spot the sucker".
Ficken was registered as a brand name - as in "Dense pine thicket behind thick finches pecking hard!" WTF?
A new name on the political horizon (well, in a new job): David Shearer - of Labour, not of sheep. Though he may yet fleece the loyal few...
The name Rena will also be remembered without fondness. Don't expect an upsurge of use in christenings. But it did give Greenpeace a chance to do odd paintings with dead penguins.
While on the subject of boats, the Tupperwaka sank into oblivion taking $2m.of taxpayer money with it.
Kap'yong: there's a word NZ forgot - as in the 60th anniversary of RNZ Artillery's heroic stand. A forgotten battle in a forgotten war... sorry 'bout that, vets.
And to round things off (literally), add this word to the list: Grasse! It's Italian for "Fat!"
What wordly wonders await us this year?
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