Seasonal: Winter
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Dateline: 24th Jan. Next Update: 7th Feb.
Did I understand last year? Which year?
A couple of weeks ago, just after New Year, we pondered New Year Resolutions. I didn’t get a copy of Scott’s Almanac 2011 but last year browsing it, I noted the phenomenon of ‘new words that have come into usage’.
Every year, it seems, new words or expressions seem to creep into life. Check out the following that appeared a year or so back, and see how many you know either what they mean or where they came from:
A couple of weeks ago, just after New Year, we pondered New Year Resolutions. I didn’t get a copy of Scott’s Almanac 2011 but last year browsing it, I noted the phenomenon of ‘new words that have come into usage’.
Every year, it seems, new words or expressions seem to creep into life. Check out the following that appeared a year or so back, and see how many you know either what they mean or where they came from:
Flipping
Suffra-Jets
Twitterdead
Silver crime
Forever Generation
Kettling
Glam-Mas
Skips
Fit note
Simples!
Suffra-
Silver crime
Forever Generation
Kettling
Glam-
Fit note
Simples!
(From Schott’s Almanac)
(Editor’s note: Warning! I think I knew two (three with some thought) and guessed correctly two more. See how you do.)
If I didn’t understand last year, what hope is there for me this year? Does it matter? Probably not! Someone will tell you if it is important. As this isn’t one of our proper quiz pages, if you want the answers, you’ll find them by scrolling right down the page.
But January, in the middle of the Winter season, we tend to focus on the new year and maybe the things that happened last year. Maybe we do this because the weather tends to be so miserable we don’t want to talk about outside happenings. Perhaps it is the human equivalent of hibernating.
Of course ‘New Year’ is simply a mechanism, if you like, of handing the calendar and it varies according to countries. We, of course, tend to work off the Gregorian calendar so New Year was what we called January 1st. (Introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and now accepted as the international civil calendar)
The orthodox churches of Georgia, Jerusalem, Russia and Serbia still use the Julian Calendar which starts the New Year on our 2nd January. (The Julian calendar began in 45BC by Julius Caesar, continued to be used up to beginning of 20th century)
The Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year, occurs every year on the new moon of the first lunar month, about four to eight weeks before spring. The exact date can fall anytime between 21 January and 21 February. Travelling around the wordl, you will also find the Iranian New Year, in India, the Telugu new year, the Kannada new year, and the Punjabi new year, and there is also the Nepali new year, the Thai new year, the Cambodian new year and Lao new year, the Bengali new year, the Sinhalese new year etc. etc.all on different days!
OK, enough of New Year stuff. We won’t mention it again until 2012!
Answers:
Flipping = practice of MP’s switching the homes they nominate as second homes for the purpose of claiming expenses
Suffra-Jets = activists protesting against the expansion of Heathrow Airport
Twitterdead = celebrities whose deaths have been erroneously reported online
Silver crime = crime committed by senior citizens
Forever Generation = a cohort of British youth who because of dearth of savings, face working ‘forever’.
Kettling = a police strategy of crowd control through containment
Glam-Mas = hands-off grannies reluctant to care for their grandchildren
Skips = expats who flee Dubai because of unemployment or debt
Fit note = sick notes that detail the tasks an unwell worker is capable of
Simples! = catchphrase from CompareTheMeerkat.com
(Editor’s note: Warning! I think I knew two (three with some thought) and guessed correctly two more. See how you do.)
If I didn’t understand last year, what hope is there for me this year? Does it matter? Probably not! Someone will tell you if it is important. As this isn’t one of our proper quiz pages, if you want the answers, you’ll find them by scrolling right down the page.
But January, in the middle of the Winter season, we tend to focus on the new year and maybe the things that happened last year. Maybe we do this because the weather tends to be so miserable we don’t want to talk about outside happenings. Perhaps it is the human equivalent of hibernating.
Of course ‘New Year’ is simply a mechanism, if you like, of handing the calendar and it varies according to countries. We, of course, tend to work off the Gregorian calendar so New Year was what we called January 1st. (Introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and now accepted as the international civil calendar)
The orthodox churches of Georgia, Jerusalem, Russia and Serbia still use the Julian Calendar which starts the New Year on our 2nd January. (The Julian calendar began in 45BC by Julius Caesar, continued to be used up to beginning of 20th century)
The Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year, occurs every year on the new moon of the first lunar month, about four to eight weeks before spring. The exact date can fall anytime between 21 January and 21 February. Travelling around the wordl, you will also find the Iranian New Year, in India, the Telugu new year, the Kannada new year, and the Punjabi new year, and there is also the Nepali new year, the Thai new year, the Cambodian new year and Lao new year, the Bengali new year, the Sinhalese new year etc. etc.all on different days!
OK, enough of New Year stuff. We won’t mention it again until 2012!
Answers:
Flipping = practice of MP’s switching the homes they nominate as second homes for the purpose of claiming expenses
Suffra-
Twitterdead = celebrities whose deaths have been erroneously reported online
Silver crime = crime committed by senior citizens
Forever Generation = a cohort of British youth who because of dearth of savings, face working ‘forever’.
Kettling = a police strategy of crowd control through containment
Glam-
Fit note = sick notes that detail the tasks an unwell worker is capable of
Simples! = catchphrase from CompareTheMeerkat.com