Cyberatheletes Might Suffer from Globesity…. Unable to Decipher? Read On…

A digital native is in all probability a cyberathelete who would not suffer from boomeritis but is at a risk of globesity.

The Macquarie dictionary this week asked readers to vote for their favourite new word in the latest annually updated online volume, offering a total of 85 words or phrases in 17 categories.

Most of the words are not specifically Australian, but reflect global trends in fields such as technology, health and what the dictionary calls the social scene.

A cyberathlete is defined as "a professional player of computer games" while boomeritis covers a range of sports-related injuries incurred by baby boomers as they pursue physical fitness programmes into their old age.

A digital native is "a person who grows up using digital media and communications systems, and thus has complete familiarity with them," while globesity sums up the worldwide fat phenomenon.

At risk of globesity are salad dodgers -- overweight people -- and slummy mummies -- mothers of young children who have abandoned all care for their personal appearance, as opposed to yummy mummies.

A slummy mummy might also use a floordrobe, "a floor littered with discarded clothes, viewed ironically as a clothing storage system."

She could also possibly, but not necessarily, have arse antlers -- "a tattoo just above the buttocks, having a central section and curving extensions on each side."

The overworked mother is unlikely, however, to suffer from tanorexia -- "an obsessive desire to have tanned skin, placing the sufferer at risk of skin cancer."

Someone who might succumb would be a practitioner of manscaping -- "a grooming procedure in which hair is shaved or trimmed from a man's body, as from the back, legs, chest, genitals, etc."

Many of the new words have been generated by the inexorable march of new technology, with password fatigue being "a level of frustration reached by having too many different passwords to remember".

Overcoming password fatigue, however, has its own dangers, exposing the computer slave to data smog -- "electronic information as by emails, internet searches, etc., which, by its volume, impairs performance and increases stress."

Voting for a favourite word takes place over the last three weeks of January, with the "word of the year" announced in early February.

Source-AFP
LIN/M