How up-to-date is your English vocabulary? New words reflect a changing society and, as a result, new words are coined every day. Reading English newspapers and media from around the world can help you keep up with the changes. Here are some words I picked up recently on my travels.
Last month in Australia, the 161-year-old Melbourne-based newspaper The Age identified teens who are always looking at their iPads, video games and smartphones as screenagers. A clever substitution of the word "teen" with "screen" gives us a word that precludes the elderly — i.e., pensioners — perhaps because they still prefer to write mail and take notes with pens.
But the line between screenager and adult is more blurred than ever before, as the terms kidult, rejuvenile and adultescent are increasingly used to refer to grown-ups who like things traditionally intended for children, such as cartoons, toys, computer games and — yep — even Disney movies (gotcha!). An advertisement for Kellogg's Mini Wheats cereal boasts that it is "For the kidult in you."