18 December 2012

Fossil Farming overlooked for word of the year in favour of green-on-blue

| johnboy
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The ANU have announced their Australian National Dictionary Centre “has selected green-on-blue as their 2012 Word of the Year”.

Personally I liked some of the other things on the shortlist more:

The other terms were shortlisted based on their increased profile in the Australian social and cultural landscape throughout the year.

“While an American scientist theorised that a qubit – a quantum bit or quantum piece of information – might be built, it was a team of Australian engineers who this year made the breakthrough that will lead to the construction of a quantum computer,” said Dr Laugesen.

“The issue of drugs – in particular, the abuse of prescription drugs – has led to the term fossil farming, which denotes ‘the activity of buying prescription drugs from elderly people for personal use or illegal sale’.”

Australia’s ageing demographic has seen fourth age, ‘people aged 85 and over’, begin to be spoken about in the media. While celebrity and personal image motivated the appearance of brotox, meaning ‘botox used by a man’.

“Brotox has been around since last year, growing in popularity in 2012, and perhaps has increased relevance for Australians due to our fascination with, and speculation about, the ongoing transformation of Shane Warne,” said Dr Laugesen.

Fossil Farming in particular is going to become a bigger and bigger issue as more prescription drugs have recreational uses.

Why would you try and live on just the old age pension when telling the doctor the pain’s gotten worse can get you a visit by that nice young man from the bikies and $200 in your pocket for half the oxycontin prescription?

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