In other words of the year: shirtfront?
The American Dialect Society has not, as of this writing, named its (the really big one), but a number of publishers and other players in this game have. They seem rather slim pickings so far.聽
The have announced their pick for 2014: vape, meaning to smoke an electronic cigarette.
Linguist Geoff Nunberg has named God view as his word of the year for 2014. As he explained in a piece for , 鈥淚t鈥檚 the term that the car service company Uber uses for a map view that shows the locations of all the Uber cars in an area and silhouettes of the people who ordered them.鈥�
The media seized on the term when it came out that Uber had entertained visitors by pairing that view with customer data to display movements of named individuals.
From Australia comes another distinctive word of the year. But even Australians, it turns out, couldn鈥檛 be quite sure what it was supposed to mean.
The word is shirtfront, used as a verb. Here鈥檚 the story: Australia hosted the Group of 20 summit in November. It was to include Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom Australians, who lost many of their compatriots aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, are profoundly unhappy, to say the least.
It can be dismaying to the host of an international gathering like this to have no control over the guest list. And so Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, under some political pressure to sound tough, commented at a press conference before the summit, 鈥淟ook, I鈥檓 going to shirtfront Mr. Putin ... you bet I am.鈥�
It might overstate it to say his comment went viral, but his term was picked up by at least a couple of other political leaders.
What exactly did he mean though? News Corp. national political editor Malcolm Farr explained that to shirtfront, in Australian rules football, means 鈥渢o charge a rival player full pelt and hit them so hard they drop to the ground heavily.鈥�
Ah, but Australian multiculturalism extends to the country鈥檚 sports, and among fans of another game, shirtfront has another meaning. Because I鈥檓 still trying to work out the nuances of round ball versus pointy ball versus sort-of pointy ball, I鈥檒l just quote Mr. Farr:聽
鈥淚n rugby territory 鈥� league and union, Mr Abbott鈥檚 game 鈥� to shirtfront means to grab by the coat lapels, or indeed the front of a shirt, and vigorously challenge. So, [was] the Prime Minister threatening to metaphorically slam the Russian President into the ground? Or simply to muss up his shirt? In terminology Mr Abbott is most familiar with, probably the latter.鈥�
In the event, Putin was subjected to criticism forceful enough to prompt his early departure from the .
But the Australian National Dictionary Centre, the organization that named shirtfront its word of the year, is threading the needle on its exact definition.聽
Amanda Laugesen, director of the center, told the , 鈥淲e鈥檙e defining it at the moment as 鈥榯o challenge or confront a person.鈥欌��
