Trending buzzwords and phrases

From Trump’s “no collusion,” here it became a collision that turned out to be an allision. And so it goes.

What’s in a word? Much. The effect (on fishermen and discerning landlubbers both) can be devastating. Oh, okay, that might be uber, if not unli — so let’s just say disheartening, disappointing, disgusting. As when a maritime accident gets even more sanitized, as a maritime incident.

Literarily (not literally, okay?), that’s the use of a litote, a conscious, rhetorical understatement as a stylistic choice. A litote is the opposite (also mini-me) of hyperbole.  

There should be a word to mean an allision followed by abandonment. A pity Senate Prez Tito Sotto left it at “naano lang” without following up with “at iniwanan.”  

Maybe in Mandarin or some Chinese dialect, there is such a word. We know the Vietnamese apply one: “Friends.” Affirmed with hot noodles.  

In any case, such incidences (“the frequency of occurrence”), not incidents (“the occurrence per se”), we have long been familiar with.

Only snowflakes, sleazebags, douchebags, scumbags and “Dutards” can try to deny a whisper of awareness. Most of them are also trolls that trust in the sanctity of their own echo chambers.

You know the drill. Whenever that guy takes a hard pass on common sense in favor of an imagined charm offensive, the bot masters quickly nod and chorus: “Sounds like a plan.” And before anyone can say, “That escalated quickly,” why, the fashion auteur at the Palace releases a matrix of sellouts and quislings.

But let us vacate, if temporarily, the word-building of bagmen, who are never on point while winging it, relying on their resilience while on the slippery slope of a learning curve — that never leads to the comfort zone of truth.

The larger world continues to come up with new words and turns of phrase that resonate and trend, until they go virtually viral. Often, media phemoms herd our ears to acknowledge what have actually been relatively old words, such as warg or direwolf. Everyone’s also become fond of narrative, or narrative arc.

Then there are fantasy constructs like “adamantium” — a fictional metal alloy that appeared in American comic books, as “the substance bonded to the character Wolverine’s skeleton and claws.”

Remember the fatal attraction with paradigm? That was sourced to academics and wordsmiths who served corporate boardooms. It’s been on the wane, since a couple of decades ago. You may now try to relate it with template.

Tech and social media keep expanding our vocabulary, with default, predictive, algorithm, malware, cyber libel, ghosting, game changer, influencer, hate mail, friendzoned…

Politics and media have trawled in “age of disruption,” populism, Brexit. A summit remains the be-all but not end-all for an eyeball between top leaders, while plunder shimmies to and fro in terms of an exact definition per our local courts. 

Athletes can be transcendental, or generational. As ballers on a court, when in a zone or in the zone, they can take a heat check. Or like Steph Curry, describe the Raptors’ surprise box-and-1 defense as janky, far different from wonky.

When asked what he meant, Steph said, “I don’t know, that’s a little Southern, North Carolina slang that I probably just pulled out of my back pocket. It sounds right. I don’t really know what the true definition is.”

The Urban Dictionary defines “janky” as “inferior quality; held in low social regard; old and dilapidated; refers almost exclusively to inanimate material objects, not to people.” Clearly, Curry’s disparaging comment was out of left field, and incorrect, since the defense tactic commonly used in middle school held him down in that Game 3, exposing his lack of what Kobe used to claim as a mamba mentality.

For his part, Charles Barkley once said he thought little of analytics, the “systematic computational analysis of data or statistics” that help draw up a player’s PAV, or all-around value.

It’s not on the same plane at metrics, and is even more remote to optics, “the scientific study of light and vision,” but which has acquired wonky use as a political and business buzzword to mean “appearance” or “perception,” thus denoting the opposite qualities of deception and insincerity.

Another sporting term that has gained currency is “VAR” for “Video Assistant Referee” — the increasing use of which, in football (not soccer!), is spawning controversy. Not unlike CCTV.

Iconic stays on the pedestal. Fake news has yet to run its course. So with me-too, channeling, gatekeeping, enabler, dealbreaker, change agent, dad bod, gaydar, glamping, clone, drone, bespoke, and close it to, craft as in increasingly popular craft beer. Similarly, scams, pyramid scheme and Ponzi are still with us, as are nuance and luminous, based on their frequency of appearance in literary and art reviews.

Iteration has become a recent favorite, as “the repetition of a process or utterance,” also as “a new version.” Some single malt whisky distilleries claim a special bottle to be an iteration, when it should just be an edition.

Gaslighting, as well as weaponization (of the law) often lead to redacted lines in printed communication, something like duct tape on parts of human victims. Cryptocurrency is making a comeback with Facebook’s new plan to offer its own iteration. Trickle-down effect has also been revived, with its actual application now given the lie by economists. 

Boris Johnson had been characterized as shambolic (“chaotic, muddled, confused”) — which could well apply to that leader of the Free World who still claims the need to “drain the swamp.” We could say the same of our own leadership, which infinitely embraces hubris rather than lean towards becoming sapiosexual (one “aroused by intelligence”).

Thankfully, a degree of buyer’s remorse is in the horizon, especially since nine-dash line fabulists are all the more exposed to be on a “grey zone offensive,” per the ever-salient patriot, Senior Justice Antonio Carpio.  

Words have consequences. Frequency of usage leads to cliché. Be that as it may, “tokhang” (as well as “EJK”) soon ought to join “trapo” (from “tradpol”) among the 200 Pilipino words added to the Oxford English Dictionary thus far. It could be this dispensation’s lasting legacy for word-building. Rather than the false mantra of “Build build build!”

Meanwhile, in continuing discernment, and increasing defiance, lucidity and certitude, we should keep “holding the line” and “speaking truth to power.”