For a little festive fun here at Rambutan, following updates for the Oxford English Dictionary whereby they add brand new words to reflect the times, we’ve decided to compile a little list of our own.
These Rambu-words have been created using the bunch’s own experiences of life in 2020, and in no way should be taken with any seriousness! Strangely enough, most of them are centred around online meetings… think you can tell what the bunch have been up to for a lot of the time!
Online meetings
Mute-pouncer: a person who relishes telling people they’re on mute in a virtual meeting.
Book-bragger: a person who deliberately positions themself so that their backdrop makes them look clever.
Top-dresser: a person who wears business dress on the top and their pyjamas on the bottom.
Snake-vapourer: a person who turns their camera off to vape, but you can still hear the hiss.
Pet-shunter: a person who ‘shunts’ their pet before calamity strikes, following said pet attempting to jump onto the keyboard while they’re trying to work online.
Enviro-camo: blurring or virtually concealing (camouflaging) a particularly messy or embarrassing background in one’s home office environment.
Teams-séance: the activity of ‘raising the dead’ during a Teams or other online call, e.g. “John, are you there?” or “Mary, can you hear me?”
Zoomitis: the slightly dizzy feeling you have when moving from one virtual meeting to the next without breaks, and end up staring fixedly into space
Nibble guzzler: daintily eating little snacks which on Teams/Zoom and trying to disguise your mouth which has been gobbling food all-day
General
The furlough merlot: knowing it’s now acceptable to have wine mid-afternoon on a school night
Mask-muffler: a person who puts on a face mask and becomes totally unheard and misunderstood
What’s your favourite new (made-up) word to sum up 2020? Send in your suggestions. We’d love to read all about them!
In the meantime, we’d all like to wish you a relaxing, healthy and happy festive season, and here’s to a brighter and better 2021!
