For a very brief moment the words ‘snap election’ seemed to take over from ‘fake news’ as the most common phrase across all media last week. It didn’t last long though, and with so many other words, phrases and terms vying for top position in the weeks coming up to the election on June 8, it’ll be up to the bookies to come up with a favourite. ‘Health care’ will be popular. ‘British people’ should be too and no doubt ‘strong leadership’ will get a fair airing also. Words like ‘economy’, ‘polls’ and ‘debate’ will soon feel very overused and ‘expert opinion’ will form the basis of comments in news reports from Washington to Agrabah. But what will the non-voting and the newly voting youth like to hear as politicians try to battle with news delivered through social media? A bit of Googling brings up a huge range of vocabulary that was popular last year. ‘Sharenting’—the habitual use of social media to share news, images, etc of one’s children, was popular. As was ‘FOMO’—fear of missing out, and its much healthier opposite, ‘JOMO’—joy of missing out, which was described as the pleasure gained from enjoying one’s current activities without worrying that other people are having more fun. Then there was ‘adulting’—the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks—like voting perhaps? So this year the month of May is destined be punctuated with sound bites, memes, clever political headlines and words all designed to get attention, whilst many of us will strain to hear or read the words that politicians actually aren’t saying. Long before the announcement of the June election one witty blogger suggested a few words and phrases that might be popular in 2017. ‘Fascism’ and ‘Trumpism’ were two and ‘Phews’, which is a more trendy way of saying ‘fake news’ by throwing in a ‘ph’, was another. But one phrase that really stood out was ‘Post-politics’, which was described as ‘getting on with one’s life while ignoring politicians as much as possible’. It will be interesting to see if, on the back of the turmoil created by last year’s UK vote, the turnout for this election will be at the level predicted and whether there will be any clarity on what people are actually voting for. The one certainty is that by the end of it all we are likely to be ‘knackerpooped’.
