刘梦琪
【Abstract】With the rapid development of the times, hot words are becoming a more and more important part that enriches the English vocabulary. The thesis divides hot words into several classifications, namely, hot words related to people and relationship, hot words related to sports, hot words related to politics and current affairs, and in terms of the word formation way, hot words formed by clipping or compound, the thesis even contain hot words in terms of transportation. These hot words usually describe a certain type of cultural phenomenon, and are used by young people for they are trendy.
【Key words】hot word; cultural phenomenon; current affairs; politics
Hot Words Related to People and Relationship
Groupies are class of people who go crazy pursuing or worshipping a movie star or pop singer, for example there are basketball groupie, baseball groupie, and even case groupies, who sit on the bench of the court hearing cases. Idolater is a more formal way of saying groupie. Words like selfie include helfies, phots taken of ones own hairstyle、welfie, photos taken of oneself in the gym、drefie, photos taken of oneself after being drunk, and even bookshelfie, photos taken of ones bookshelves, etc.
Words like groupie include goodie and hottie, talkie, foodie, and selfie, coolie, etc. foodie, chihuo means a person who would love to eat, while selfies are photos taken of oneself. Hottie is a very beautiful girl, coolie has Indian origin of word, nerverties are easy to get nervous. “Bestie” is a colloquial way of referring to your best friend, even though BFF is abbreviated for best friend forever. Roomie, on the other hand, is a shortened form of roommate.
Rookies are beginners at a field, therefore rookie mistakes are rather basic and foolish. “A sharp cookie”, by the way, is another way of saying a wise student.
Tweenager is another hot word, describing a young person between the ages of approximately eight and twelve. The word probably combines twelve and teenager.
maglev, combining magnet and elevator, is a high-speed form of transportation.
Another very long word, friendshipwreck, includes the meaning of friendship and shipwreck, is a fashionable way of saying the end of a friendship.
Although moment is a very short period of time, nowadays it refers to the content shared by the users in your friend list in Wechat, a very popular chatting software nowadays.
“Find a sugar Daddy” describes the phenomenom of girls marrying rich men for economic concerns.
“Empty nestlers” are old people being left at home, in most cases, their children study or work away from home, sometines study overseas, and they are left alone at home.
officiallings are offsprings of public servants, usually indicating inappropriate behavior usurping their parents' rights.
Although many people are bloggers, nowadays podcast is becoming a more popular way for net users to share information with voice.
“She male”, a bizzare combination of words in appearance, describes a group of people in Thailand――young men undergoing transsexual operations to become beautiful ladies and doing shows in nightclubs to earn money.
Phubber neck is developed when people use their cellphone too much, just as “phubber” is used to describe people indulged in using cellphones. phubber is ignoring the person in front of you in favor of your phone.The word is so popular that there is even a campaign called “Stop phubbing”.
Though not quite recent, complex is another hot word.
People can develop different kinds of complex associated with different objects or even people, and complex is a special or compulsive feeling. For example, blog complex,and lolicon, a mania for girls looking much younger than their appearance. When integrated with Greek mythology, Oedipus complex is special likeness for or over-reliance on one's mom.
Associated with young pop singers nowadays, boy band consists of young, and often handsome male singers.
While geeks are often knowlegeable, film geeks are maniac with films.
Although Nazis are notorious for being violent, body-Nazis are focused on body-building, tobacco-Nazis are active in opposing smoking, and nipple Nazis are prone to breast-feeding,and Jazz Nazis love jazz.
As Sputnik is the first man-made satellite in USSR, cinimanik are movie-lovers, computerniks are crazy about computers, while rockniks love rock music, and peaceniks love peace.
With the popularity of a female Chinese swimmer, a quotation went famous,“I have used all my force”, “I have spared all my efforts”, or“I have used historical force”.
I Just want to be a lady-killer quietly,or I just want to be a quiet and handsome man is a quotation from TV drama.
adorkable people are cute but a little bookish.
“Working poor” describes a state of working very hard but still being poor.
Virtual celebrity, or wanghong(網红), is normally a girl becoming famous on the internet, with it “蹿红”is also fashioned.
In addition, “rejuveniles” are people over the age of teenagers but are nostalgic about their childhood memory and would like to “go back” in time and pick up their childhood hobbies again. In mandarin, these people are called “fan qingchunzu(返青春族)”.
To “court envy(拉仇恨)” means to attract envious emotions, usually by living luxurious lifestyle.
“flaunt wealth”(show off) means to show off one's fortune, such as cars or iPhones, etc.
Some simple combination of words are also given new meanings. For example, “a nice boy”is translated into nuannan
(暖男), and was once used to describe Tiantian, or Zhang Yuexuan, the son of an actor, Tian Liang, for he never failed to encourage other playmates of his.Likewise, “boy band”, or “xiaoxianrou(小鮮肉)”is usually composed of young and handsome singers.“migrant workers”, called “nongmingong
(农民工)”are peasants leaving their hometown to seek oppin big cities, called metropolis. Just like migrant birds, flying from the north to the south in winter and fly reversely in the spring.“happy-go-luckys(乐天派)”are usually optimistic about their life and future, and thus are a simplified way of saying “optimistic”.
To sum up, “hot words”present a simple way of expressing big and complicated ideas.
“a fat cat”, instead of describing animals, means a very affluent, or wealthy woman.
“rich and bitch”, with rhythm, meaning capricious, usually involves the behavior of overspending. second rich generation, a derogatory word, means young men with rich parents and are capricious with their behavior. Another phrase containing rhythm is “brain drain”, meaning the loss of talents in a region or country.
Hot Words Related to Sports and Technology
In sports, Pakour is a hot word, describing a new form of sports by walking vertically on smooth levels. Bench warmers are chosen to be substitutes for the players on court.
“Second generation”, “third generation”, or “fourth generation”, instead of referring to a group of people, like X generation, mean refer to a new kind of technology.
Wireless Fidelity is another hot word in this field.smilence, another clipping word, combining smile and silence, is a hot word describing a state of smiling without talking, usually hiding disagreement.
Kidult is another clipping word combining kid and adult, typically describing a group of people entering the early adulthood, normally aged between 23 and 28, and are immature in their behavior.
“Walkathon (竞走)”is a clipping word composed of walk and marathon, a kind of sport similar to jogging, slower than running, faster than walking.
When the name of some places or countries is not initialized, new meanings are created.
For example, to “shanghai ”, instead of referring to the financial center of China, means to rob and be deprived of possessions, it is derived from the American movie“The Carribean Pirates”;while japan, instead of referring to an Asian country, is a form of painted art.
Diamond, daimeng (呆萌),is another way of saying cute or lovely
“A big like”, is displayed in heart shape, and in Chinese, to give a big like is called “dian zan(点赞)”.
“Book banks” are not financial centers, but second-hand bookstores.
“A big shot” is a very famous person.
“Shotgun marriage”, another way of saying “shanhun”
(闪婚),means to marry without knowing each other for very long time.
“A people person” is someone very gregarious, and loves socializing, just like party animals are mad about going to parties. Of course, there are various types of parties, such as bachelors party, held on the night before the groom gets married, and Christmas party, a birthday party, a dinner party, a garden party, a welcoming party, a housewarming party, held on moving to other houses, hens party is only for ladies, just as stags party is restricted to men. No-host parties have no anchor. On a baby shower, women pregnant with babies will receive many gifts, and if a man or woman crash a party, they took part in the party without invitation. In addition, there are also tailgate party and necktie party. Likewise, “a phone person” is someone who loves making telephone calls, their telephone calls last for such a long time that it is like the process of making porridge.
“Tapioca” is an official way of saying milk tea, a drink originated from South Korea.
Entry luxuries are goods that are a little expensive, in mandarin, it is called “qingshe”輕奢品,entry usually refers to a word or phrase in the dictionary and an entry leaner is just a beginner.
Darby and Jones refer to couples.
Hot Words Related to Current Affairs
These words are normally abbreviations for long parallel sentences, for example, “Three Represents” and “four-pronged comprehensive strategy (四个全面战略布局)”
“Three Represents” refers to what the Communist Party of China currently stands for.
That is:
It represents the development trends of advanced productive forces.
It represents the orientations of an advanced culture.
It represents the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people of China.
It was put forward by Jiang Zemin, former Chinese president in 2000.
Likewise, “Brexit” is also a clipping word related to current affairs. Combining “Britain” and “Exit”, the word refers to Britains exit from European Union.
“Empty nestlers” are old people nowadays left alone at home, for their children are whether studying abroad or working in coastal cities.
Oprahbate is the combination of Oprah, the name of a quite famous American talk show hostess, and debate, as Oprah is rather eloquent, the word means very fierce debate.
Winston Churchill, as we all know, is a very important British politician during WWII, he led the British army in defeating the American armed forces. Therefore, Churchillian resistence is rather strong and tenacious.
Although “bear hugs” are passionate, some foreigners would even offfer free hugs on campus, hate hugs often hide hateful feelings for the person being hugged.
May-December love describes a relationship between young girls and old men.
Oprahfication is presidential campaign participated by voters in the form of talk show.
Hillary factor is womens tendency to control everything.
“Staycation” also a clipping word, combining “Stay” and “vacation”, has the same meaning as “otaku” in Japanese, means someone who would like to stay at home all the time. “Homebody” is another way of saying staycation, referring to boys who would like to stay at home.
Smog, on the other hand, combines smoke and fog, is a new type of pollutant. With it PM2.5 also came into being, meaning particles less than 2.5 microns, which was set as a standard measuring the quality of air.
A deadbeat is a person who lives on his or her parents and relatives and dont earn money on their own. Although the word “deadbeat” has been in the English dictionary for a long while, for example in Collins Cobuild, the entry was explained as referring to lazy people who do not want to be part of ordinary society. The word made its debut on the screen in the movie “When Beijing meets Seattle”, played by Wu Xiubo, and the popularity of the movie brings about the huge popularity of the word, meaning someone who rely on other people to make their ends meet, and can not gain independence.
Balloon score is another way of saying full score.
Gelievable is another hot word meaning “superb”, a word coined by Chinese citizens; it's used to describe something extremely good, which could be better translated into “awesome”, as red cap is a substitute for volunteer.
Hot words related to different body parts
Curry is a kind of food originated from India, but “curry favor” means sugar-coating sb., or saying sth. that sounds pleasant degradingly.
Although tyrant refers to sb. rude, a “student tyrant” usually excels in his or her academic work or study.
Two Conventions(兩会),refers to CPPCC and NCPC.
Another hot word is “clean your plate campaign”, instead of referring to any social event, this phrase means to eat up your food, and advocates the idea of being spendthrift
The public started a campaign on January, 2013. This campaign aims to call on people to save food instead of wasting anything on the plates. The main theme of this activity is not to waste any food. This campaign was first started from Sina weibo. Just a few days, tens of thousands people in China have joined in this meaningful activity.
Some compound words are also hot words, for example the word metropolice is a combination of metro, the French way of saying subway and police, and the word refers to the policemen on the subway. “Netiquette”, on the other hand, is a combination of the word “net” and “etiquette”, and it can be easily concluded that the words refers to etiquette on the internet.
Hot Words Related to Vegetables and Food
Hot potatoes are issues that are difficult to solve. “Potato couches” are people who stay at home watching people all day long. “Small potatoes” are people who are inconspicuous, not famous, just ordinary people.
Other hot words include “loser”, and in mandarin is “diaosi”(屌丝). This word does not mean sb. Who doesnt win a game, but more often than not, refers to someone who is very poor.
“Turkey Drop” refers to the phenomenon of high-school couples breaking up when they come home for their first Thanksgiving. A hot word related to festivals.
Hot Words Related to Numbers
Twenty-twenty is a good vision, and “Ive told you twenty times” is an exaggerating way of saying “Ive told you countless times.”
“Time-honored brand” is a brand that lasts for a long time, and in mandarin is called “lao zihao”(老字号).
Of course, “hope project” has been in the vocabulary of a lot of people, but in recent years, “ice bucket challenge” that required nominated participants to have a bucket of ice water poured on their head and ALS, a disorder that's also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are also becoming known to everyone.
Hot words in Commercial Context
To “hotdesk” means not having a fixed desk in office while working. This way, companies can save space by reducing the overall number of desks it needs to provide because not everyone is at work every day. and flexitime is a clipped word combining “flexible” and “time”, meaning the workers have quite a lot of free time doing part-time jobs and have got a flexible schedule. Coopetition occurs at inter-organizational or intra-organizational levels. It is a neologism coined to describe cooperative competition.
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