grand-matenoun [C]
/ˈgrænd.meɪt/ a grandparent who shares a home with a grandchild, or a grandchild who shares a home with a grandparent
This new “grand-mates” trend is bringing about some truly heartwarming intergenerational bonding. The New York Times profiled a number of families who are “grand-mates,” and not one of them had complaints about it. The worst thing they could say was that sometimes the grandchildren weren’t as tidy as their grandparents would like. But there’s an easy solution: One grandma said, “I just keep the door to [my granddaughter’s] room closed.” [aleteia.org, 10 November 2022]
blue zone thinkingnoun [U] UK /ˌbluː zəʊn ˈθɪŋ.kɪŋ/ US /ˌbluː zoʊn ˈθɪŋ.kɪŋ/ a way of treating old people that sees them as an important part of society and encourages them to remain healthy and active
The best retirement home I’ve seen wasn’t a retirement home at all — it was an integrated living block in Austria, in which people of all ages lived together, with medical and care centres located on the ground floor, next to the children’s nursery. Homes could be adapted as your needs changed, there were restaurants, shops and clubs for all. This tallies with “blue zone thinking”, in which older people are integrated into society rather than put out to pasture. [thetimes.co.uk, 24 September 2023]
zombie cellnoun [C] UK /ˈzɒm.bi ˌsel/ US /ˈzɑːm.bi ˌsel/ a cell that is damaged and can no longer multiply but remains in the body and can cause age-related disease
Scientists are working on drugs that kill “zombie cells” to help you live to 200. Zombie cells are a terror-inducing nickname for senescent cells, damaged cells that refuse to die. These damaged cells pile up as we age and lead to inflammation and altered stem cell function. [honehealth.com, 29 June 2023]
Brotoxnoun [U] UK /ˈbrəʊ.tɒks/ US /ˈbroʊ.tɑːks/ a humorous word for Botox when the procedure is given to a man
The rise of so-called Brotox is being reported in the UK, where the male grooming industry is worth an estimated £500 million a year. Celebrities aren’t immune from this trend. Plastic surgeons say that more and more male stars appeared to be “jumping on the Brotox bandwagon”. [theweek.com, 12 August 2023]
perception driftnoun [U] UK /pəˈsep.ʃᵊn ˌdrɪft/ US /pɚˈsep.ʃᵊn ˌdrɪft/ someone’s inability to remember how their natural face looks after they have had a number of cosmetic procedures such as Botox
The term perception drift was first coined by a dermatologist and cosmetic surgeon. It happens when people get a series of procedures or tweakments and forget how they originally/naturally looked prior to aesthetic changes. Perception drift is when a person’s perception of change following an aesthetic treatment is skewed or inaccurate. In most cases, other people notice these changes, but not the ones who underwent the procedure. [cutislaserclinics.com, 28 April 2023]
prejuvenationnoun [U]
/priːˌdʒuː.vᵊnˈeɪ.ʃᵊn/ the act or process of using cosmetic procedures on someone who is still young to prevent them from looking older later
In the world of aesthetics, a new trend has turned into a lifestyle: prejuvenation. Younger patients are more interested in skincare and aesthetics than ever, suggesting that aesthetic enhancements shouldn’t be limited to corrective procedures. Prejuvenation refers to seeking preventative aesthetic procedures that postpone visible signs of aging instead of correcting problems after they occur. [novaplasticsurgery.com, 27 June 2023]
V2Hnoun [U]
/ˌviː.tuːˈeɪtʃ/ abbreviation for vehicle-to-home: a system that allows electric vehicles to transfer the energy stored in their batteries back into the electrical system of a home
The idea is that electric vehicles, when not in use, often have surplus energy stored in their batteries. Rather than letting this energy go to waste, V2H systems enable the vehicle’s stored energy to be fed back into the home’s power grid, powering household appliances and systems. With V2H, EV owners can potentially save on their electricity bills and make more efficient use of their renewable energy resources, while also providing a backup power source for their homes. [electriccarguide.co.uk, 19 October 2023]
bidirectional chargingnoun [U] UK /ˌbaɪ.daɪˈrek.ʃᵊn.ᵊl ˈtʃɑː.dʒɪŋ/ US /ˌbaɪ.dɪˈrek.ʃᵊn.ᵊl ˈtʃɑːr.dʒɪŋ/ a system that allows the electricity put into the battery of an electric vehicle to be transferred out of the vehicle and used to provide electrical power for something else
One of the most talked about features in the EV world works only when your car is parked: Bidirectional charging allows owners to turn their vehicles into four-wheeled batteries, sending power back to their homes, appliances and even to the utility grid. Currently, bidirectional charging is available in only a handful of cars. But its popularity is growing: GM announced that the technology will come standard in all its electric vehicles by model year 2026. [cnet.com, 4 September 2023]
charge ragenoun [U] UK /ˈtʃɑːdʒ ˌreɪdʒ/ US /ˈtʃɑːrdʒ ˌreɪdʒ/ anger or violence between a driver who is charging their electric vehicle and other drivers who are waiting in a queue to do so
Electric vehicle owners furiously arguing with each other over charging points because there aren’t enough of them available are having to get up in the dead of night to power up their motors. Such is the “charge rage” that marshals are being brought in to police frustrated drivers at motorway service stations. [dailymail.co.uk, 3 October 2023]
We all make judgments every day about what to believe and what not to believe, so it’s not surprising that there are several nice phrases to express this process.
conversational commercenoun [U] UK /ˌkɒn.vəˈseɪ.ʃən.əl ˈkɒm.ɜːs/ US /ˌkɑːn.vɚˈseɪ.ʃən.əl ˈkɑː.mɝːs/ the use of chatbots and other machine learning technology to make people feel they are talking to a real person when they buy things, ask for advice etc. online
With conversational commerce, customers can get quick answers to important questions, easily purchase items without having to navigate through entire websites, and receive helpful suggestions based on their previously collected customer data, including personalized product recommendations. [bloomreach.com, 24 August 2023]
immaculate disinflationnoun [U]
/ɪˌmæk.jə.lət dɪs.ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃᵊn/ the situation where inflation falls but this does not lead to a rise in unemployment, which would usually be expected
Economists added yet another term to their lexicon in recent months: immaculate disinflation. While there’s no official definition of immaculate disinflation, the phrase is being used to describe a scenario where inflation cools without causing a spike in unemployment … President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser, Jared Bernstein, expressed skepticism about the term. “I wouldn’t call this disinflation immaculate,” he said. [edition.cnn.com, 6 September 2023]
hyperphysical retailnoun [U] UK /haɪ.pəˌfɪz.ɪ.kᵊl ˈriː.teɪl/ US /haɪ.pɚˌfɪz.ɪ.kᵊl ˈriː.teɪl/ the activity of making a shop more visually appealing and creating interesting experiences for the people who go there
With consumers’ growing appetite for engaging shopping experiences, brick-and-mortar stores now have to find more imaginative ways to compete. That’s why some brands are reinventing their retail spaces to make them so spectacular that visiting them is an emotional experience. Adding sensory and emotional attractions to a shop is a new trend called “hyperphysical retail”. [medium.com, 29 September 2023]
Today, the Cambridge Dictionary announces its Word of the Year for 2023: hallucinate. You might already be familiar with this word, which we use to talk about seeing, hearing, or feeling things that don’t really exist. But did you know that it has a new meaning when it’s used in the context of artificial intelligence? Continue reading “Understanding AI jargon: Artificial intelligence vocabulary”→
AGInoun [U]
/ˌeɪ.dʒiːˈaɪ/ ABBREVIATION FOR artificial general intelligence: a type of artificial intelligence that some people believe will be developed in the future, with the ability to learn to solve any kind of problem as well as, or better than, a human being
He defines AGI as AI systems that can solve any cognitive or human task in ways that are not limited to how they are trained. In theory, AGI, he says, can help scientists develop cures for diseases, discover new forms of renewable energy, and help “solve some of humanity’s greatest mysteries.” [businessinsider.com, 27 May 2023]
Poltergeist attacknoun [C] UK /ˈpɒl.tə.ɡaɪst əˌtæk/ US / ˈpoʊl.t̬ɚ.ɡaɪst əˌtæk/ a way of using high-frequency sounds to cause the machine learning algorithms used by self-driving cars to make mistakes in identifying people, objects and other vehicles, which could cause accidents
Poltergeist attacks diverge from traditional cyber threats, such as hacking or jamming. They create deceptive visual realities, similar to optical illusions, for machines employing machine learning for decision-making processes. [techtimes.com, 26 September 2023]
superalignment noun [U] UK /ˌsuː.pə.rəˈlaɪn.mənt/ US /ˌsuː.pɚ.əˈlaɪn.mənt/ the study of how to control superintelligent AIs that may be built in the future so that they act in ways that are useful and not harmful to human beings
OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and head of alignment Jan Leike wrote a blog post on the concept of superalignment, suggesting that the power of a superintelligent AI could lead to the disempowerment of humanity or even human extinction. “Currently, we don’t have a solution for steering or controlling a potentially superintelligent AI, and preventing it from going rogue,” the pair wrote. [techmonitor.ai, 6 July 2023]
groundverb [T]
/ɡraʊnd/ to give an AI model facts about the real world so that it will produce information that is more accurate and useful
As we start to see more applications built upon foundational AI models — we will also see an increase in the use of external datasets, articles, networks and databases to “ground” the model to factual data and relevant user context. [medium.com, March 2022]
ghost worknoun [U] UK /ˈɡəʊst ˌwɜːk/ US /ˈɡoʊst ˌwɝːk/ work done by a human being, usually online and for low pay, to do a task that most people believe is done automatically by a computer
“Ghost work” is anthropologist Mary L. Gray’s term for the invisible labor that powers our technology platforms. When Gray, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research, first arrived at the company, she learned that building artificial intelligence requires people to manage and clean up data to feed to the training algorithms. [theverge.com, 13 May 2019]
voice cloningnoun [U] UK /ˈvɔɪs ˌkləʊ.nɪŋ/ US /ˈvɔɪs ˌkloʊ.nɪŋ/ the use of artificial intelligence to make recordings that sound like the voice of a specific person
… it looks like the system harnesses the power of voice cloning, which has grown in popularity in recent years. The technology works by taking samples of your voice; a computer model is then trained to generate speech in your voice based on whatever text input it applied. [ukpcmag.com, 25 September 2023]
RLHFnoun [U]
/ˌɑː.rel.eɪtʃˈef/ ABBREVIATION FOR reinforcement learning from human feedback: a technique that improves the performance of an AI by getting human beings to provide information about how good the results it currently produces are
Reinforcement Learning From Human Feedback (RLHF) is an advanced approach to training AI systems that combines reinforcement learning with human feedback. It is a way to create a more robust learning process by incorporating the wisdom and experience of human trainers in the model training process. [unite.ai, 29 March 2023]
This week we’re putting on our best clothes and grabbing a box of chocolates for the host because we’re going to a party! Well, okay, we’re not actually going to a party, but we are looking at words that we use to refer to social occasions where people meet up to enjoy themselves. You might be surprised at how many words there are. Continue reading “Reunions and housewarmings (Words for different parties)”→
