Brandalism and Omnishambles in Eurogeddon – Social media’s influence on the british language in 2012

You’ve had enough of business jargon and office talk, here’s some words that became popular in 2012 through social media in the UK.

Brandalism

The conflation of “vandalism” and “branding” describes a recent movement in which street artists stencil, paint and otherwise deface advertising billboards with their own designs. All in the name of Art. Each “artist” has their own signature or tag…The ironic thing is many of these “brandalisms” just feature the artists tag, looking remarkably similar to the campaigns used by the brands they are trying to rebel against.

Omnishambles

A situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterised by a string of blunders and miscalculations. Notable omnishambles this year include G4S’ failure to meet the demands of this years olympic security contract and the governments handling of the proposal process for the west coast rail service contract.

Sofalising

“Sofalising” came into its own this year as more brits started avoided the expense of going out by spending the night on the sofa browsing social media sites. Instead of going out and drinking, people started playing farmville and tweeting. A survey found that a quarter of us prefer to do our socialising from home, with the average Briton spending 4.6 hours a week talking to friends online.

Soz

The March 2012 release of the Oxford english dictionary encompasses different varieties of English. British slang gives us soz adj. for ‘sorry’, imitating the type of shortening found in familiar names like ‘Daz’ for Darren or ‘Caz’ for Caroline.

Histrionics

Melodramatic or hysterical behaviour, typically intended to attract attention [1931]; showy vocal or instrumental virtuosity [1940]

Eurogeddon

This term refers to the deteriorating economic climate in Euope – the ailing economies of Spain, Portugal and Greece, and the desperate attempts by the French and German governments to keep the ship afloat. We have seen austerity measures, multiple bail-outs and protests in the streets of europe’s capital cities – the uncertainly continues, while the economies of the world watch in anticipation.

It can be certain that social media is influencing the development of the english language, but is this for better or for worse ?