My husband woke himself up with a snort that sounded like a crocodile seizing the hind limb of a warthog, reached for his whisky glass and said, as if I had accused him of anything: ‘Just chillaxing.’ If this useless portmanteau word struggles through a few more months of life, it will be thanks to David Cameron — or his enemies.
Take these words: bromance, mumpreneur, mankle, frape, emberrorist, foodoir. They were talked up last year as new entries into dictionaries, and are supposed to mean: a sexless friendship; a working mother; a man’s ankle; altering a Facebook profile without permission; someone threatening to reveal embarrassing information; and a memoir incorporating recipes.
Not only does one not use these words, but if someone else used one, the immediate response would be: ‘I’m sorry…’ Hearing ‘I think it’s just a bromance,’ or, ‘She was a victim of frape’, either the listener would think the words were romance and rape, or he’d have no idea what was meant.
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