New words – 3 June 2013

self-interrupt verb to break off briefly from work to check email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Office workers are interrupted, or self-interrupt, roughly every three minutes.

[https://plus.google.com 12 December 2012]

third-gender adjective refers to a person who identifies as neither male nor female

The new ID was a long time coming – the Supreme Court ruled in favour of third-gender IDs back in 2007.

[New Internationalist (UK current affairs magazine) November 2012]

walker noun a platonic male friend with whom to go for walks, to the theatre, etc.

She had been discussing this with two other single women of her age, and she’d said her ideal walker would be a musician […]

[The Guardian (UK broadsheet) 20 October 2012]

About new words

2 thoughts on “New words – 3 June 2013

  1. “Self-interrupt” describes grotesquely bad behavior; it deserves at the very least a (pej) qualifier.

    “Walker” is a term limited to a specific occasion. (Walkers are hired, for instance, to “escort” models at fashion shows.) Much longer-established is “beard,” which can be used to described any opposite-sex escort who acts to conceal his or her own homosexuality, or the homosexuality of the star he or she is escorting.

    Given recent dramatic changes in world-wide attitudes toward lesbians and gay men, this discussion may now be irrelevant. From your computers to God’s ears!

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