Spreading the word

For the Brits, the word that best describes 2022 could be “permacrisis”. But what about here in New Zealand?

- GREG DIXON

There has to be a word for it. One that seizes the mood, summons the state of mind. It could be a word that, with pleasing succinctness or rare humour, captures or explains what it was like to live through the last calendar, and why many of us were so glad to see the back of it. Or it might be a word that’s a pleasing or curious new addition to the Kiwi vernacular.

Whatever it could be, or should be, New Zealand needed a “word of the year” for the frequently lamentable 2022.

Other English-speaking countries had at least one. The British came up with several to sum up a year with more lows than highs, including the unattractive “permacrisis”. Politically and economically, the poor blighters faced one fiasco after another, which also helps explain the ugly phrase “goblin mode”. This is a slang term for giving the finger to social norms and middle-class expectations by glorying in self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly or greedy behaviour.

The Australian public, with its ever-accurate ear for the cruel putdown, voted as its word “bachelor’s handbag”, a nickname for a pre-cooked, bagged supermarket roast chicken.

Meanwhile, in a year that saw Roe v Wade struck down, Americans found inspiration for their various words of the year in their never-ending culture wars. One word suggested for 2022 was “gaslighting” – ultimately derived from the classic 1944 film noir Gaslight – meaning “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for one’s own advantage”. Bizarrely, another word picked in the US was “woman”, apparently because it reflects “how the intersection of gender, identity and language dominates the current cultural conversation”.