New words – 20 February 2023

a young man holding his head in his hands as he looks at a laptop showing falling profits
iantfoto / E+ / Getty

crypto winter noun [C]
UK /ˈkrɪp.təʊ ˌwɪn.təʳ / US /ˈkrɪp.toʊ ˌwɪn.t̬ɚ/
a situation when the price of cryptocurrency falls and remains very low for a long period of time

When will the crypto winter end? No one can say for sure, but given the current economic trajectory and recent string of bankruptcies, experts don’t think it’ll end anytime soon. We’ll be here until at least mid-2023 …That said, there are similarities between this crypto winter and prior ones that point to 2024 as the next time this market might boost back up.
[time.com, 2 December 2022]

bossware noun [U]
UK /ˈbɒs.weəʳ / US /ˈbɑːs.wer/
a type of software that employers can use to monitor what their employees are doing on their computers

Can a company really use computer monitoring tools – known as “bossware” to critics – to tell if you’re productive at work? Or if you’re about to run away to a competitor with proprietary knowledge? Or even, simply, if you’re happy? Many companies in the US and Europe now appear – controversially – to want to try, spurred on by the enormous shifts in working habits during the pandemic, in which countless office jobs moved home.
[theguardian.com, 27 April 2022]

cyber ambassador noun [C]
UK /ˌsaɪ.bər æmˈbæs.ə.dəʳ / US /ˌsaɪ.bɚ æmˈbæs.ə.dɚ/
a person who helps other people use the internet safely and protect themselves and their computer information against crime or attacks carried out online

Rajeshwari is one among thousands of students from the south Indian state of Telangana who are being trained to become “cyber ambassadors” in the region. Over 3,000 students graduated from the first class of cyber ambassadors last year. And following the success of the first batch, the Telangana government—which is perhaps the first state in India to have come up with a novel concept like this—has started the second batch of the course with almost 10,000 students.
[wired.com, 13 January 2023]

About new words

2 thoughts on “New words – 20 February 2023

  1. Remember a whole lot of “bossware” growing up – even if we didn’t call it that.

    There would be creative uses of the escape key to get out of games or apps which were not strictly to do with work – and they would show something like a spreadsheet.

    A lot of keyboard loggers are considered bossware.

    And good to know there are 10,000 more cyber ambassadors/digital ambassadors around India and elsewhere.

  2. cyber ambassadors: They are true ambassadors spreading humanity
    Who said all ambassadors are humans?
    I will send you a quiet…
    In the Seventeenth Century, Sir Wotton (1568-1639) announced,
    “Ambassador is an honest man sent to lie for the good of his motherland”
    I wrote this in my poetry book “BRING OUT our Genocided Skulls & Artful Hands”
    published in Yerevan, Armenia, by Zangak. For Honesty and Dignity, John Marshall Evans, United Ambassador to Armenia (2004–2006), was dismissed from the diplomatic circle because he used the word genocide and not “massacre,” which was against the politics of Condalisa Rice during the Bush administration.

Leave a Reply