UK, 1849—transformation into a pumpkin; extravagant or absurdly uncritical glorification—coined after Hellenistic Greek ‘ἀποκολοκύντωσις’, the title of a travesty ascribed to Seneca, according to which the deceased Roman emperor Claudius, instead of being elevated to divine status, is changed into a pumpkin
Read MoreUSA, 1992—to reduce staff numbers to levels so low that work can no longer be carried out effectively—portmanteau, coined by the Trends Research Institute, combining the adjective ‘dumb’, meaning ‘stupid’, and the verb ‘downsize’
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USA, 1983—an acronym deliberately formed from a phrase whose initial letters spell out a particular word or words, either to enhance memorability or as a fanciful explanation of a word’s origin—blend of the adjective ‘back’ and of the noun ‘acronym’
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USA, early 1980s—depreciative—suggests values epitomised by the McDonald’s restaurant chain, such as low quality, blandness, standardisation, superficiality
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not originally coined because of the connotation of explosiveness, but because of the connotations of pleasure, beauty and tininess
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from an advertisement for the concentrated beef extract Bovril, showing a bullock lamenting over a jar of the product
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The Guardian, UK, 23 May 1978—used by one Lionel Bloch to designate—and denounce—the rhetoric employed by the advocates of the communist regimes
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1974—coined by the Irish journalist John Healy with reference to the Troubles in Northern Ireland
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Fundamentally, I object to the will of any group to artificially modify language in order to impose their world view.
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coined by Thomas Jefferson in Notes on the State of Virginia, first published in Paris in 1785—literal meaning: ‘to make little’ (composed of the prefix ‘be-’ and the adjective ‘little’)—criticised in The European Magazine, and London Review of August 1787 when the book was published in London
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