Welcome to first Word Buzz Wednesday of 2016! As always, we’ve rounded up our favorite buzzworthy words of the week. The latest: thinking outside the (literal) box; going under the knife — and to one’s happy place; and reaching out and really touching someone (well, almost).

burrnesha

“Families in this predominantly farming region of the Balkans could designate one of their young daughters to live a life of celibacy as a burrnesha, or sworn virgin.”

Kaelyn Forde, “14 Stunning Portraits of Albania’s Few Remaining Sworn Virgins,” Refinery29, December 14, 2015

Remote villages in the Albanian Alps continue to live by the Kanun, says Refinery29, “a traditional 15th-century code of honor that reserves most social privileges for men only,” including the handing down of wealth and land.

However, families with no sons have another option: the designating of a daughter as a burrnesha, or sworn virgin, which elevates “a woman to the status of a man [with] all of the rights and privileges of the male population.”

functional fixedness

“Today he’s most famous for an experiment that illustrates ‘functional fixedness,’ which is the tendency of people, when they’re used to seeing an object as useful in one particular situation, to miss its potential usefulness in other situations.”

Esther Inglis-Arkell, “How One Psychologist Convinced Children to Spurn Sugar,” Gizmodo, December 22, 2015

While you no doubt have heard the worn-out trope of “thinking outside the box,” you might not know that an early experiment testing this concept of functional fixedness involved a literal box.

Given a box with a candle, book of matches, and some tacks, volunteers were asked to adhere the candle to the wall. Some used the tacks; others used the matches to melt the candle wax into a sticky substance. Neither were successful. Only a handful tacked up the box itself.

hypnosedation

“This method of hypnosedation is a technique specifically for patients undergoing ‘awake surgery’ — a common method for brain surgery.”

Sarah Sloat, “Brain Surgeons Are Turning to Hypnosis as an Alternative to Anesthesia,” Inverse, December 29, 2015

Hypnosedation is the practice of using hypnosis as a sedative. According to Inverse, the process may take up to a few weeks, beginning with sessions in which the “anesthesiologist/hypnotist” works with the patient to create, essentially, a happy place. In the operating room, the patient is placed in a hypnotic trance while the hypnotist is ready anesthetic if anything goes wrong.

Hypnosedation might be used during awake surgeries — the removal of a brain tumor, for example —  which require that patients be conscious so that doctors can ensure that vital abilities, such as vision, language, and body movements, are still intact.

‘knock-out’ animals

“Researchers use Crispr to make ‘knock-out’ animals to study what happens when specific genes aren’t working.”

Caroline Chen and Doni Bloomfield, “The Gene-Editing Tool on Every Drugmaker’s Wish List This Year,” Bloomberg Business, December 24, 2015

A ‘knock-out’ animal is an animal “in which researchers have inactivated, or ‘knocked out,’ an existing gene by replacing it or disrupting it with an artificial piece of DNA.”

telehaptic

“Researchers have built a machine that renders holograms touchable, adding to a growing body of ‘telehaptic’ prototypes released in 2015.”

Joon Ian Wong, “Japanese scientists have created a new type of hologram that you can actually feel,” Quartz, January 1, 2016

Telehaptic prototypes are those that generate the sensation of touch between two people or a person and an object that are physically distant. The prefix tele– means “over a distance” while haptic means pertaining to touch, and comes from the Greek haptikos, “able to come into contact with.”

One of the cutest words of the year.

As you know, every Wednesday we round up the most interesting words of the week, and what an interesting year in words it’s been — from new words with tried and true suffixes (deflategate, datasexual, and mobilegeddon); to new-to-us words (deadnaming and allochtoon); to new names for old familiars (Daesh, Denali), to no lack of blends, food or otherwise.

Here we take a look at the best of this year’s buzziest words.

The Cutest

TIE: ili pika, adorabilis, smol

There was no way we choose just one of these totes adorbs words. The ili pika, also known as the “magic rabbit,” is a rarely spotted rabbit species native to China. The adorabilis is a teeny-tiny pink octopus that dwells the deep sea. Finally, smol is Internet-speak for small and cute, which sums up this whole category.

Best Tribute

Spocking

This term from at least 2008 regained popularity in March when Leonard Nimoy sadly passed away. In honor of the actor, some Canadians turned the portrait of Sir Wilfrid Laurier on five dollar bills into Nimoy’s most famous character.

Best Untranslatable

tsundoku

In English we don’t have a word for this lovely Japanese term that refers to the “buying of books and not reading them; letting books pile up unread on shelves or floors or nightstands.”

The Best Weird Stuff Comes from Asia Award

TIE: mukbang, ikeman, rui-katsu

Another tie! Korean for “eating broadcast,” mukbang are videos of people eating immense amounts of food. Ikeman is Japanese colloquial for a “hot guy” — or a hot gorilla as the case may be. In fact, Shabani the hot gorilla is such an ikeman, he’s getting his own DVD. Another Japanese import, rui-katsu refers to communal crying events.

The Best Papist Neologism

stralimitata

Pope Francis, during his historic trip to the U.S., was so overwhelmed by his visit to New York, he had to invent a word to describe it: stralimitata, which translates from Italian as something like “beyond all limits.”

Meme We Never Want to Hear About Again

Purkinje effect

That damned Dress. The Purkinje effect is why some of us see it as white and gold and others as blue and black. Basically, in low light our eyes shift toward the blue end of the spectrum. Now let’s never speak of the Dress again.

The Shaking Our Heads Award

Churchillian Drift

It’s wonderful that Maya Angelou was honored with her very own postage stamp. Not so wonderful? Attributing the poet with a quote she didn’t say, otherwise known as Churchillian Drift.

Runners-up: jigaboo and chai-yok

We don’t know what makes less sense: describing Lady Gaga’s music as jigaboo, or using a term long known to be a racial slur against African Americans.

Meanwhile in GOOP land, actress-cum-lifestyle guru Gwyneth Paltrow raved about the “ancient Korean practice” of chai-yok, which involves steaming one’s, well, nether regions. However, the practice isn’t ancient and is barely Korean. At most it’s Los Angeles Korean. But whatever chais your yok.

The Borg and Stepford Award

TIE: amabot and wife bonus

An August New York Times piece shed light on the grueling work life that some Amazon employees experience: “If you’re a good Amazonian, you become an Amabot.” In other words, you become one with the system.

In May we learned (also from the Times) about the practice of wife bonuses, financial incentives some New York stay at home moms receive depending on how well they complete certain tasks, such as managing the household budget and getting their children into prestigious schools.

The Most Scandlous

TIE: deflategate and piggate

One is about the old pig skin and the other is about a disturbing act on a pig.

The year kicked off with deflategate, accusations against the New England Patriots for letting “air out of some footballs to increase their grip on the ball in the wet weather.”

In September, another scandal emerged with claims that as a student British Prime Minister David Cameron put “a private part of his anatomy” in the mouth of a pig carcass. Now we know where the Black Mirror writers got their idea.

The Best Flawless Pronunciation of a Ridiculously Long Town Name

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

‘Nuff said.

What words defined 2015 for you? Let us know in the comments!

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, in which we round up our favorite buzzworthy words of the week. The latest: authentic chocolate; screen time senility; and the Donald gets disgusting.

bean to bar

“The best-known craft chocolate bar makers in the country—celebrity beardo Brooklyn chocolate sellers the Mast Brothers—admitted in the New York Times today they’d been remelting industrial chocolate from other vendors and reselling them as ‘bean to bar’ chocolate.”

Matthew Korfhage, “Portland Chocolatier Says Mast Brothers Bars Have Always Been Terrible and Everybody Knew,” Willamette Week, December 21, 2015

Willamette Week describes bean to bar chocolate as “the cacao equivalent of single-source coffee roasts.” As Slate describes it, the process starts with raw cacao beans and involves “painstakingly roasting, grinding, and tempering them into chocolate bars in small batches.”

The term is reminiscent of another foodie phrase, nose to tail, referring to eating every part of an animal, from snout to stub.

digital dementia

“Forgotten something? The problem may not be age but your smartphone or other similar device. And brain health experts have even coined a name for the condition: digital dementia.”

Jeanette Wang, “Web-mad Hongkongers have digital dementia — and we’re losing our memories,” South China Morning Post, November 2, 2015

The term digital dementia was apparently coined in South Korea by doctors who witnessed “young patients with memory and cognitive problems, conditions more commonly linked to brain injuries” — problems, presumably, linked to excessive screen time.

German neuroscientist Martin Spitzer, author of Digital Dementia: What We and Our Children Are Doing to Our Minds, says that using a computer is the equivalent of “outsourcing your mental activity.” While this might be fine in moderation for adults, children also need time for unstructured play.

irja

“Unless you have some knowledge of medieval Islamic theology you probably have no idea what irja means.”

Mustafa Akyol, “A Medieval Antidote to ISIS,” The New York Times, December 21, 2015

You’re right, Mr. Akyol! But luckily you’re here to tell us. Irja translates literally as “postponing,” and was a “theological principle put forward by some Muslim scholars” in the first century of Islam, as the result of a major civil war being fought during that time.

The proponents of irja — known as murjia, or “postponers” — asserted that the “burning question of who is a true Muslim should be ‘postponed’ until the afterlife.” In other words, true faith was something that could only be judged by God and not other humans. In the end, however, the murjia didn’t have enough influence in the Muslim world.

Jillennial

“The ready to radicalize population is overwhelmingly young and male. Usmani calls them ‘Jillennials’ — jihadis who are Millennials.”

Heather Long, “Who’s joining ISIS? It might surprise you,” CNN, December 15, 2015

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term millennial, which refers to those born between about 1980 and 1995, originated around 1991, while jihadi, one who advocates jihad, or a holy war against “infidels,” entered English around 1920.

schlonged

“In a long campaign that’s far from over, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comment. . .that Hillary Clinton…’got schlonged’ in her 2008 primary run might be considered just another insult.”

Justin Wm. Moyer, “Donald Trump’s ‘schlonged’: A linguistic investigation,” The Washington Post, December 22, 2015

Schlong, a slang term for penis, may also refer contemptuously to a person. The word is Yiddish in origin and and translates literally as “snake.”

Linguist Steven Pinker told The Washington Post that “given Trump’s history of vulgarity and misogyny, it’s entirely possible that he had created a sexist term for ‘defeat,”’ and that as far as Pinker knew, “there is no such slang verb [as get schlonged] in Yiddish.” However, it may simply be a mistake, what with Trump’s track record of “sloppy language.” WaPo also points out that Trump used “get schlonged” at least once before, also in reference to a female political candidate.

Meanwhile, Clinton is “too disgusting” for having to use the ladies’ room.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, in which we round up our favorite buzzworthy words of the week. The latest: a military acronym; real-life Doctor Freeze; and a rare disease.

DUSTWUN

“DUSTWUN, a name taken from the clunky abbreviation for the term ‘duty status whereabouts unknown’, starts with Koenig describing the video of Bergdahl’s return.”

Lanre Bakare, “Serial recap – season two episode one: DUSTWUN,” The Guardian, December 10, 2015

Podheads everywhere can rejoice: Serial is back. This season takes a look at the case of Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier captured in Afghanistan in 2009 and released in 2014 in exchange for five Guantánamo Bay prisoners. Bergdahl is also facing a court-martial on desertion charges.

The first episode of this season’s Serial is called DUSTWUN, an acronym that is basically the army’s version of “man overboard.” The term also evokes the image of the dust of the Afghan desert, as well as perhaps the idea of Bergdahl disappearing one day like dust in the wind (sorry Kansas haters).

geocryologist

“When I spoke with him at VICE’s Toronto office in October, the permafrost scientist—also known as a geocryologist, currently stationed at Moscow State University—told me that he’s feeling just fine.”

Jordan Pearson, “Meet the Scientist Who Injected Himself with 3.5 Million-Year-Old Bacteria,” Motherboard, December 9, 2015

Permafrost is “permanently frozen subsoil, occurring throughout the Polar Regions and locally in perennially frigid areas.” Geocryology is the study of those frozen subsoils and what may be found there, such as ancient bacteria. Anatoli Brouchkov, the geocryologist of the article, has injected himself with such a type of bacteria in order to study its effects on human longevity.

popcorn lung

“This week, new research from the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that the flavorings in some types of e-cigarettes contain chemicals that have been linked to a rare disease called ‘popcorn lung.’”

Julia Belluz, “Some e-cigarettes contain chemicals that cause ‘popcorn lung,’” Vox, December 9, 2015

Popcorn lung is so-called because it was first witnessed in people who worked in factories that made microwave popcorn. Symptoms included wheezing and shortness of breath, says Vox, which doctors found was due to “permanent lung damage” caused by diacetyl, “the chemical that adds that buttery flavor and smell to popcorn.” Now research is suggesting that some e-cigarette flavorings are causing the same damage.

slacktivism

“The researchers found that the power of this ‘slacktivism’ lies in the large number of users who engaged with the causes online.”

Kate Groetzinger, “Slacktivism is having a powerful real-world impact, new research shows,” Quartz, December 10, 2015

Slacktivism, a blend of slacker and activism, is a kind of 21st-century armchair activism very much tied to the Internet, says Quartz. A recent study showed that using social media tools like Twitter to carry out messages of protests such as Arab Spring and #BlackLivesMatter is integral to turning those protests into movements and prolonging their lifespans.

The term slacker might seem quintessential 1990s, but it originated in 1898 with basically the same meaning, someone who shirks responsibility. The word gained popularity during World War I when it came to mean a military draft dodger.

Softboy

“In typical Softboy fashion, [Zayn Malik is] generous — he bought his parent’s house for them, and he funds his cousin’s private school education. He prefers to call his fans ‘passionate’ as opposed to crazy.”

Fariha Roisin, “Soft Power,” Medium, December 8, 2015

The Softboy, a term coined by writer Alan Hanson, is in opposition to the Fuckboy, who’s all and only about — well you know. The Softboy is “Nice yet Complicated,” “sensitive yet amusingly crass,” artistic, aware, and “still a dick.”

Rosin asserts that the Softboy image of ex-One Directioner Zayn Malik is powerful because “Muslim men aren’t ever seen as Softboys.”

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, in which we round up our favorite buzzworthy words of the week. The latest: an explosive Japanese buzzword; another kind of name calling; and a different kind of bird call.

allochtoon

“Growing up in Belgium, they had internalized the label: once an allochtoon, always an allochtoon.”

Chika Unigwe, “The Near-Impossibility of Assimilation in Belgium,” The New York Times, November 25, 2015

The term allochtoon translates from Flemish as “originating from another country.” Those who aren’t considered traditionally Belgian — in other words, non-whites — are referred to as such, even if they were born in the country.

bakugai

“The Japanese aren’t alone in experiencing bakugai, even if they’re unique in calling it that. Along with Japan, Europe is a major destination for Chinese shoppers.”

Steve Mollman, “Japan’s buzzword of the year means ‘an explosive shopping spree by the Chinese,’” Quartz, December 1, 2015

Bakugai translates from Japanese as “buying explosion,” and refers specifically to the “explosive shopping sprees carried about by Chinese tourists,” says Quartz. This is due in part to the rapidly expanding Chinese middle class.

Other 2015 Japanese buzzwords include Goromaru pose, a rugby’s star pre-kick signature stance, and doron, the Japanification of “drone.”

deadnaming

“Calling someone by their rejected birth name is termed ‘deadnaming’.”

Avinash Chak, “Beyond ‘he’ and ‘she’: The rise of non-binary pronouns,” BBC, December 7, 2015

Considered disrespectful, deadnaming refers specifically to transgendered people who have changed their names. Even after revealing her true name, some media outlets continued to call Caitlyn Jenner by her “dead name,” Bruce.

hybrid swarm

“Most biologists believed that hybridization in nature primarily resulted from human interference, when people remove a barrier between two closely related species, leading to a ‘hybrid swarm’ that obliterates the distinctiveness of one or both types of animal.”

Ben Crair, “What’s a Species, Anyway?” New Republic, December 6, 2015

The human interference in this case was the shooting of red wolves by ranchers, says New Republic, which lead to vastly depleted numbers in the population. The more wily coyotes survived and “encountered the last surviving red wolves, whose numbers were so depleted that they took the coyotes as their mates,” resulting in hybridized creatures that “bore little resemblance” to their fearsome parental predators.

pishing

“The difference between pishing and birdcalling might seem slight, until you hear them in action.”

Andy Wright, “How to Be a Bird Pick-Up Artist,” Atlas Obscura, December 1, 2015

Pishing, unlike bird-calling which involves imitating specific birds, is a more general “scolding call,” says Atlas Obscura. The sound is rapid and high-pitched, like “a mix between a sprinkler going off and a tire leaking.” The word is imitative.

Pish is also used to express disdain, and has been in use since at least the late 16th century, says the Oxford English Dictionary.