Word collector

Where my love of language meets my organisational gene

Cactus grafitti © Rebecca Whitney

Modern speak

Absolutely smashed it
Knocked it out the park 
They’ve done us proud 
Yeah, one hundred percent
Raise the bar
Say less, say less
You’ve got this
You go girl
Step up to the plate 
What’s not to love 
Good crew
Not my manor
Do one
Grow a pair 
Randos/normies
Deets/peeps/tix
Bro/bruv/bruh
Hon/babes
My bad
Garms
Packet 
Mahoosive
In a bit 
Calm/chill
Imagine our surprise when…
An abundance of caution
Crushing on you
Yeah no absolutely

Culture

Semantics
Incubator
Shifting baseline syndrome 
Reverse engineer 
Nudge
Emerging
Normcore
Word salad 
Passive
Biophilia 
Mainlining
Showing up
Radical optimism
Moonshot
Lived experience
Desire paths 
Morphic resonance 
Crimped
Necrosis
Hellscape
Stay in your lane
Step into your power
Open source
Interaction bait
Microdosing
Diversify
Excavated 
Unpack
Relative deprivation
Performative cruelty
Dissonance
Normative
Meta
Inclusion rider
Life partner
Adaptive reuse
Mono no aware
Blow-ins
Collab
Intersectional feminism
Upstream
Mission creep
Situationship
Black ops
Darknet
Deep fake
Systemic
Tipping point

Writerly words I will try not to use

Wacky. Quirky. Jaunty
Thrumming. Gloaming. Sentinels. Keening
I’m looking at you, dear reader 

Overheard

Where flowers are, god is, and I am free – John Clare 
Endless posts about her supremely unremarkable kids
My ambition and vanity collapsed the marriage 
Let us never speak of them again
Disaster recovery crash team
Vibing on your algorithm
Face like a bruised wolf (thanks Dem :)
The world is divided into people who like liquorish and aniseed, and those who don’t
His biting insecurity and unsettling ambition 
Oi mate, got any beak, got any chisel?
Gotta keep subtracting useless stuff – AJ Daulerio 
Apocalypse humour – one day the gallows might seem like a gift 
This cauliflower cheese needs pimping up 
What possessed you to participate in this crime can only be described as comprehensive stupidity
Her gravity will also be shifting
Most of all, I ask you to be kind
There’s a daddy long-legs in the butter 
Solutions only – MF Doom

Not a fan

People walking behind my reversing car 
A soft, pale tomato 
A warm banana
A powdery apple
The absolute state of my handwriting
Slow walkers taking up the whole pavement
Crumbs in the bed 
An overly fondled avocado 
Cold ankles
Funfairs/theme parks/piers
Clattery restaurants playing aggressive jazz 
Hair on the soap
Still being scared of the carwash
A builder’s radio
Grubby swans

Simple pleasures
 
Old hard charred toast, with fridge-cold butter
Bedroom window open to the night
The alchemy of scrambled eggs in a hot wok 
Honeysuckle on a warm evening 
Melting butter, making ghee 
A Galaxy Ripple straight from the freezer  
Back scratchers 
Early evening sketchiness
Rain on skylights
Driving fast through massive puddles
Lumps of mist 
Clever techno
Hot beach cafe lunches 
A chilled Mars Bar cut into slices and eaten with a fork
Everyone home, big dinner, all asleep