Blogvember post 16 … word of the year!

Exciting news courtesy of Sydney Writers Centre this week, I give you my new favourite word!

Drum roll, please… Oxford University Press has announced their Word of the Year for 2012.

And the winner is, ‘omnishambles‘.

An excellent all purpose word that will now replace my other favourite word, cluster-fuck, which means roughly the same thing but is not suitable for all audiences.

I love the idea of language being fluid and changeable. What I love most about this new word is that part of it, contains the word ‘shambles’ which is an obsolete terms for a open-air slaughterhouse or meat market. I remember visiting one or two in England which still retained their wooden boards and are still markets, although now not so bloody.

While none of the ominshambles I am regularly confronted with contain that much visceral matter, it is a word, nevertheless that will conjure in my mind the most awful of scenes.

I like the ‘omni’ part too. So ponderous and weighty. Taken together, it is such an evocative sounding word. Say it aloud a few times. Omishambles. Omishambles. Omishambles.

As you head into your weekend, which if it’s anything like mine, will undoubtedly contain the odd omnishambles where totally everything will end in a clusterfuck, take heart that you now have an excellent all purpose word to express your frustrations.