Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: a revolutionary hashtag, tipsy fish, and an excellent insult.

fishball revolution

“Reports of a crackdown against the hawkers who sell fish balls and other local food delicacies quickly spread on social media along with the hashtag #fishballrevolution.”

Louise Dewast, “Hong Kong ‘Fish Ball Revolution’ Erupts in Violent Crackdown,” ABC News, February 9, 2016

#fishballrevolution joins other revolutionary hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, #YesAllWomen, and the 2014 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong known as the #umbrellarevolution.

The fishball revolution protests came as a result of Hong Kong’s “Localist” movement activists defending unlicensed food vendors, whom police were attempting to shut down.

hypercapnia

“Hypercapnia interferes with neuroreceptors in brains of fish, causing them ‘to become intoxicated,’ the study’s lead author, Dr Ben McNeill of UNSW, said in a statement.”

Olivia Goldhill, “Rising CO2 in the ocean will make fish ‘intoxicated,’ scientists predict,” Quartz, February 8, 2016

A study in Nature found that the concentration of CO2, or carbon dioxide, in some oceanic regions might increase to the point that fish would suffer from hypercapnia, “a build-up of CO2 in the blood,” which causes a kind of drunkenness. As a result, the fish would lose their sense of direction, leaving them unable to locate predators.

The word hypercapnia comes from the Greek hyper-, “over, above, beyond,” and kapnos, “smoke.”

sacred crocodile

“The sacred crocodile is also reportedly more docile than its belligerent Nile cousin, and digs caves in which it shelters.”

Ed Yong, “Natural History Museums Are Teeming with Undiscovered Species,” The Atlantic, February 8, 2016

The sacred crocodile, or Crocodylus suchus, is the second species of the Nile crocodile, previously thought to be just one species. The name was coined by scientist Evon Hekkala, who with her team discovered that the crocodiles used in sacred ceremonies were all C. suchus. Moreover, according to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, “Egyptians selectively used a smaller, tamer crocodile in ceremonies and regarded it as sacred.”

silent disco

“The Swiss city of Lausanne has banned outdoor silent discos, saying that they are too noisy.”

“Swiss city bans ‘noisy’ silent discos,” BBC, February 5, 2016

A silent disco is one in which music isn’t played aloud but via headphones. The practice apparently originated in the Netherlands in the early 2000s.

However, it seems, silent discos aren’t immune to noise, at least in one Swiss city where participants can’t help but sing along with the music.

wazzock

“Donald Trump will be familiar with most abuse but the latest – ‘wazzock’ – might leave him flummoxed.”

Patrick Barham, “Wazzock: the perfect insult to throw at Donald Trump,” The Guardian, January 19, 2016

According to The Guardian, wazzock is “Northern slang for a stupid or annoying chump,” and is what Conservative Member of Parliament Victoria Atkins called Donald Trump during a debate about whether or not to bar the GOP presidential hopeful from Britain. While the term originated in the 1970s, says the Oxford English Dictionary, its origin is largely unknown.

Linguist Ben Zimmer discusses wazzock in more detail with Lexicon Valley.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: the political playoffs; super-old poop; the buzzing dead.

caucus

“If you’re nodding your head like ‘yes, of course, the caucus,’ but secretly have no idea what the heck everyone is talking about, this explainer is for you.”

Patrick Allan, “What Are Caucuses and How Do They Work?” Lifehacker, February 1, 2016

Caucuses and primaries, says Lifehacker, are like the NFL playoffs of presidential politics. The general election in November is like the Super Bowl.

In caucuses and primaries, which all states have, party members narrow down their preferences for presidential contenders. While primaries are run by state governments, caucuses are run by state party officials.

So why is the Iowa caucus so important? While it “only accounts for 1% of the total delegates that will be casting their votes at National Conventions,” it’s “the first phase of the presidential race” and “political analysts believe a lot can be determined from just this one state’s caucus results.”

As for where the word caucus comes from, there are a couple of theories. According to Grammar Girl, the word might have come from the Algonquin cau′-cau-as′u, “one who advises, urges, or encourages,” or perhaps the Greek kaukus, “drinking cup.” John Adams formed the Caucus Clubb, a “social and political organization,” in 1763.

coprolite

“But serious study of coprolites did not begin until the mid-20th century, when researchers at McGill tried to examine Peruvian fecal samples for evidence of parasites.”

Sarah Laskow “To Truly Know an Ancient Society, One Must Analyze Its Feces,” Atlas Obscura, January 28, 2016

Coprolite is fossilized excrement. The word is a combination of copro-, “dung, filth, excrement,” which comes from the Greek kopros, “dung,” and –lite meaning “stone,” which comes from the Greek lithos, “stone.”

night mayor

“To solve this problem, the night mayor suggested not less, but more time for people to go clubbing.”

Feargus O’Sullivan, “A ‘Night Mayor’ Is Transforming Amsterdam After Dark,” CityLab, January 29, 2016

Amsterdam’s night mayor is in charge of the city’s special districts created for “after-dark businesses,” as well as managing and improving “relations between night businesses, residents, and City Hall.” The night mayor concept has also taken off in Paris, Toulouse, and Zurich.

WIMP

“The most widely used ones fall into two broad classes: weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and much lighter axions, though there is no shortage of more complex hypotheses that combine various types of particles.”

Sabine Hossenfelder, “The superfluid Universe,” Aeon, February 1, 2016

WIMPs are one of two classes of “so far undetected” particles that make up dark matter, that is, the matter of the Universe that’s invisible.

ZomBee

“But aside from helping a species and an industry, keeping ZomBees in check is a smart move because, seriously, do you want to live in a world with dying, nocturnal bees kamikazeing into your windows and lamps?”

John Metcalfe, “The Zombie Bees Are Here,” The Atlantic, February 2, 2016

ZomBees are so-called because the bees seem to have lost control of their usual functions and behavior, such as not emerging at night or in the cold. The bees are victim to a parasitic fly that injects eggs into their bodies that alter their behavior before bursting Alien-like from the bees’ chests.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: explaining the lack of aliens; a backwards bizarro universe; and sabotaging show dogs.

disconnectionist

“Science and technology professor Sherry Turkle has emerged as the most high-profile voice among these disconnectionists.”

Nathan Jurgenson, “Fear of Screens,” The New Inquiry, January 25, 2016

According to The New Inquiry, disconnectionists:

see the Internet as having normalized, perhaps even enforced, an unprecedented repression of the authentic self in favor of calculated avatar performance.

In simplest terms, our online selves aren’t our real selves, and we must disconnect from the Internet and perhaps technology in order to regain their true selves. However, one might question if any self we present to the outside world is our “true” self.

Gaian bottleneck

“The paradox of astrobiology is that many planets likely check all the boxes for being habitable for life, but we have yet to discover any. The researchers have named their solution to this paradox the ‘Gaian Bottleneck.’”

Jeva Lange, “Astrobiologists have a new theory for why we haven’t found aliens: They’re all extinct,” The Week, January 21, 2016

The Fermi Paradox, named after Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, refers to the conundrum that despite the “extremely high probability” that alien life exists, we have yet to discover a trace of it.

A possible solution to this, suggests Astrobiologists from the Australian National University Research School of Earth Sciences, is what they’re calling the Gaian bottleneck, the idea that “life exists for a brief time on other planets” but goes extinct quickly.

Janus point

“Barbour compares the Janus point to the moment where a river splits in two and flows in opposite directions.”

Olivia Goldhill, “It’s possible that there is a ‘mirror universe’ where time moves backwards, say scientists,” Quartz, January 18, 2016

Physicists from the University of Oxford, the University of New Brunswick, and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics propose that after the Big Bang, particles expanded outwards and in “two different temporal directions.” They call the moment before this expansion the Janus point, named for the Roman god of gates and doorways, who is depicted with two faces turned in opposite directions.

manosphere

“In the manosphere, the red-pill truth is that men are victimized by a contemporary culture that is biased toward the female perspective.”

Rachel Monroe, “From Pickup Artist to Pariah,” New York Magazine, January 2016

The manosphere is a collection of blogs, sub-Reddits, and other sites “inspired” by the 2005 book, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists.

nobble

“‘Nobbling’ is said by some to be common in the fiercely competitive run-up to Crufts, a series of qualifying dog shows, in which the competition and, supposedly, the intrigue is intense.”

Mark Seal, “The Dark Underside of the Show-Dog World,” Vanity Fair, January 31, 2016

In dog show parlance, to nobble is to sabotage a rival dog. The word nobble originated in the 18th century, says the Oxford English Dictionary, and means to strike, hit, or beat up. By the mid-19th century, the word also referred to tampering with a horse or greyhound to keep it from winning a race, and by extension, to harm or injure in general.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: why you procrastinate; a whale’s white thinger-doodles; and robot sperm to the rescue.

Akrasia effect

 “Akrasia is the state of acting against your better judgment. It is when you do one thing even though you know you should do something else.”

James Clear, “The Akrasia Effect: Why We Make Plans But Don’t Follow Through,” Lifehacker, January 13, 2016

Akrasia, also spelled acrasia, refers to excess or intemperance, and comes from a Greek word meaning “lack of self-control.” Lifehacker says that the Akrasia effect may be attributed to “time inconsistency,” or “the tendency of the human brain to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards.”

callosities

“Khan posted some tips and basic terminology for whale identification: the white thinger-doodles are callosities; the nose end of the whale is its bonnet.”

Elizabeth Preston, “Making Facebook for Whales,” The Atlantic, January 14, 2016

On a whale, callosities are a “pattern of whitish markings” on its head which are “key to identifying it,” says The Atlantic. A callosity in general can refer to a callous or a calloused demeanor.

Denisovan

“People whose ancestors never left the continent would not have crossed paths with Neanderthals or the Denisovans, a mysterious group of humans who lived in and around Siberia at the same time.”

Iam Sample, “Human-Neanderthal relationships may be at root of modern allergies,” The Guardian, January 7, 2016

The Denisovans refer to an “extinct grouping of the genus Homo that lived in the Altay Mountains some 41,000 years ago.” They’re named for the Denisova Cave in Siberia, Russia, where their remains were first discovered.

parachute kids

“For parachute kids, living in the U.S. is a chance to learn a new language and culture and to escape China’s ultra-competitive college entrance exams.”

Stephen Ceasar and Cindy Chang, “3 teens from China will go to prison for a San Gabriel Valley attack on a classmate,” Los Angeles Times, January 7, 2016

Like paratroopers dropped off solo into foreign territory, parachute kids are sent overseas without their parents to study in the U.S. A kind of opposite might be helicopter parents who, some might say, spend too much time hovering over their children.

spermbot

“Now a team of German researchers has invented a ‘spermbot’ that can help sperm swim better to improve couples’ fertility.”

Alexandra Ossola, “Tiny Motors Could Help Slower Sperm Swim to Egg,” Popular Science, January 13, 2016

A spermbot is a kind of nanobot designed to be directed to slow-moving sperm, to fit over the sperm’s tail, and be driven to the egg.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: people who love people who love guns; David Bowie’s financial legacy; hacking serendipity.

ammosexual

“Meanwhile, in the cities, the 21st century birthed the hipster, the metrosexual, the lumbersexual, the ammosexual and other -sexuals, these labels working to create a taxonomy of everyday types in the manner of 19th-century commentators trying to make sense of rapid social change.”

Paula Young Lee, “Keep your man-child antiheroes: The new crush-worthy guy is the quietly competent, grown-up man,” Salon, January 6, 2016

An ammosexual is “someone who loves firearms in a fetishistic manner.” The word is a blend of ammo, short for ammunition, and the suffix –sexual. It was also a nominee for the American Dialect Society’s word of the year. (The portmanteau came in third.)

auto-brewery syndrome

“Just before Christmas in Hamburg, New York, a judge dismissed the [DUI] charges after being presented with evidence the woman suffers from ‘auto-brewery syndrome.’”

Sandee LaMotte, “Woman claims her body brews alcohol, has DUI charge dismissed,” CNN, January 1, 2016

Auto-brewery syndrome, also known as gut-fermentation syndrome, is a “rare medical condition [which] can occur when abnormal amounts of gastrointestinal yeast convert common food carbohydrates into ethanol.”

blast boxers

“In the meantime, the Army issues two different kinds of protective gear for troops’ nether regions: a synthetic underwear made of silk and a Kevlar plate protecting the groin (soldiers call them ‘blast boxers’ and ‘blast diapers’).”

Joseph Jaafari, “Lab-Grown Testicles Could One Day Help Injured Soldiers Have Kids,” Motherboard, January 7, 2016

Unfortunately, a large number of soldiers don’t wear their blast boxers, a study by the University of Southern California found last year, mostly due to their discomfort.

Bowie bonds

“The pioneering nature of Bowie bonds caught the imagination of all sorts of musicians.”

Tom Espiner, “‘Bowie bonds — the singer’s financial innovation,” BBC, January 11, 2016

These asset-backed securities, dubbed “Bowie bonds” in 1997, “awarded investors a share in [the singer’s] future royalties for 10 years.” By 2004, however, Bowie bonds were downgraded to just one level above “junk,” the lowest rating.

super-encounterer

“Most interesting were the ‘super-encounterers,’ who reported that happy surprises popped up wherever they looked.”

Pagan Kennedy, “How to Cultivate the Art of Serendipity,” The New York Times, January 2, 2016

Super-encounterers, says The New York Times, are so partly because they believe they are. They assume they have “special powers of perception, like an invisible set of antennas,” that will lead them to clues and “finding treasures in the oddest places.”

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.”

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!