Is it any surprise that 'permacrisis' is the word of the year?

If you're reading from Britain – or anywhere else in the world – you might have already uttered Collins English Dictionary's Word of the Year to describe the revolving door of feckless political leaders, skyrocketing energy prices, the cost of living, and the unstable geopolitical situation. No, it's not "omnishambles." That …

[Charlie Clark]

You know where you are with an omnishambles

Omnishambles deliberately breaks the rules for coining new words and is as a result almost tautologically shambolic. permacrisis is linguistically okay (Latin and Greek mixes do abound) but fails semantically: it's oxymoronic to be permanently in a crisis.

[Filippo]

Re: You know where you are with an omnishambles

True, but I wouldn't mind a word that points out how something that's being handled as a crisis is actually a permanent condition.

[stiine]

Re: You know where you are with an omnishambles

Or that it isn't...

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: You know where you are with an omnishambles

Much how the US has been in a "state of national emergency" since 1979. Some of those are taking a long time to emerge.

[Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?]

Re: You know where you are with an omnishambles

...it's oxymoronic to be permanently in a crisis

...and yet here we are!

[T. F. M. Reader]

Re: You know where you are with an omnishambles

it's oxymoronic to be permanently in a crisis

It used to be. The word "crisis" itself has been drastically devalued, just like - or possibly more - than sterling. It is really difficult to see, e.g., a news item without "crisis" being asserted. Closer inspection reveals that the new meaning of the word is "please give us more money for whatever it is that we think is important". The most frequent variant is, "Dear Government, please give us more money...", etc.

Once you realize that language is evolving (as described above), permanent crisis ceases to be an oxymoron.

[Sam Haine]

What does the word crisis actually mean?

From the OED:

crisis, n.

Categories »

1. Pathology. The point in the progress of a disease when an important development or change takes place which is decisive of recovery or death; the turning-point of a disease for better or worse; also applied to any marked or sudden variation occurring in the progress of a disease and to the phenomena accompanying it.

2. Astrology. Said of a conjunction of the planets which determines the issue of a disease or critical point in the course of events. (Cf. critical adj. 4.)

3. transferred and figurative. A vitally important or decisive stage in the progress of anything; a turning-point; also, a state of affairs in which a decisive change for better or worse is imminent; now applied esp. to times of difficulty, insecurity, and suspense in politics or commerce.

In all definitions a crisis is a decisive point, not just a bad situation.

[Diogenes]

Re: You know where you are with an omnishambles

The word "crisis" itself has been drastically devalued

As has its related word "hero" - as in "hero 5 year old saves mum by dialling 000" (911 , 112 for non Aussies)

[doublelayer]

Re: You know where you are with an omnishambles

"it's oxymoronic to be permanently in a crisis."

Sadly, it's not oxymoronic to be permanently in a state where, when one crisis stops being a crisis, we get another one. Not that we can do much about it, but the crises we've seen over the past haven't stayed crises for long, just upgraded themselves to enduring problems, thereby leaving room for another crisis to turn up for its chance to shine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You know where you are with an omnishambles

This is an unnecessary neologism. There's a perfect word in common usage: snafu (or, more properly, SNAFU).

Damn kids these days. Get your permacrisis off my lawn!

[NoneSuch]

Honestly...

If The Reg Measurement Soviet can't define the size in lettuces or elephants then it just does not exist in my mind.

Or maybe it's just me seeing too many damned despots in this world being continually unchallenged.

[BenDwire]

Permacrisis?

I thought that just happened to hair stylists when things went wrong.

Mine's the '70s afghan with matching mullet -->

[Neil Barnes]

Splooting?

That sounds like linguistic explootation.

[John 104]

Just Wow

First, what a dismal, depressing attitude, especially the 2nd to last paragraph.

Second, This, "The rising cost of energy and living can be traced to the global effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, started February"

You know, hydrocarbons have their problems and we are working in the US and EU/UK to come up with alternate sources of energy to keep us warm and fuzzy and all that. But if whiners and alarmists hadn't put the cart before the horse and gone 'green' (which is anything but), before having actual, scaled out, viable solutions, well, the world wouldn't be in this pickle, now would they? Coal plants getting fired back up, nuclear plants getting their shut downs reversed, etc. Why, it's almost as though anyone with half a brain might have predicted this sort of thing could happen...

Lastly, if we had true leaders, we wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place. Alas, all we have are politicians who care less about serving the people they are supposed to represent, and more about lining their pockets and getting re-elected. Who is to blame for that?

[jmch]

Re: Just Wow

"The rising cost of energy and living can be traced to the global effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, started February"

Also missing an important point, which is that the rise in the cost of *energy* due partly to the Russian invasion and partly due to the wests last 10-20 years' policy of turning their backs on nuclear is only a small part of the rise in the cost of *living*. The latter is also brought about because of the massive inflation (money printing) that happened during COVID combined with the related supply chain disruption and economic slowdown. That was coming down the pipes regardless of Putin acting the dickhead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just Wow

Even the beeb admits that the cost of energy was rising long before Putin invaded Ukraine. It just gave governments something to blame other than themselves.

[jollyboyspecial]

I thought the word of the year was supposed to be a word that had entered common usage in the previous 12 month. I have never seen or heard the word permacrisis used once until I saw this story.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Me neither.

"Partygate", "Kyev" - Yes, lots.

"Carolean" - A few times, but not widely heard, and not new.

"Warm Bank", "Sportswashing", "Quiet Quitting" - Only a couple of times.

"Permacrisis", "Splooting", "Lawfare", "Vibe Shift" - Not once.

"Kami-Kwasi" would have been my offering but perhaps too short-lived to have gained traction.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard "Lawfare" loads since the mid 2010's, but I do live in the continent[1] where it was given its trial run so...

[1]: South America; particularly Argentina and Brazil, but most countries in the area have at least one case of that ilk, grossly mismanaged by the judge and/or prosecution

[doublelayer]

I've heard "splooting" a few times, but mostly because a friend has a dog that always does it. She also has a few other names for the position which usually replace "dog" with "frog". The others you've never heard I haven't either. I can also add "warm bank" to the list of terms I learned today.

[Russell Chapman Esq.]

Panpolypermacrisis?

Permacrisis can mean just one ongoing but I think adding Poly sums things up better. I saw polycrisis in the FT a few days ago. But seems we have a combination of many and permanent crisis going on globally. Guess I could make up the word Panpolypermacrisis!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do tax cuts have to be funded?

Why do tax cuts have to be funded? Can't government departments just fire employees, cancel travel, etc to lower their expenditures to their budgets? That's what sane people do.

[Horst U Rodeinon]

Re: Why do tax cuts have to be funded?

"Can't government departments just fire employees..."

One word: Unions.

[doublelayer]

Re: Why do tax cuts have to be funded?

They could cut costs, but generally, they don't want to or they pick something you don't want them to. They could probably make some improvements that wouldn't harm the people they're serving, but that doesn't happen very often. Austerity policies don't always focus on the money that's most wasted, and there are a lot of government-funded things which someone will miss if they get cut.

As to why tax cuts have to be funded, they don't if you're willing to borrow or print money to make up the shortfall. Printing the money ends badly, and many countries have, either by legislation or by custom, prohibited or at least limited using that for the budget and delegated the authority to some other group. Borrowing it can work, but depending on what country it is and how the people with the money are feeling, it can cause a lack of confidence in the nation's economy which, if not corrected quickly, can be an enduring problem.

[Diogenes]

Re: Why do tax cuts have to be funded?

but generally, they don't want to or they pick something you don't want them to.

The late great Thomas Sowell described this beautifully back in 2013 when discussing US Budget cuts with an analogy...

Assume a govt department has 2 functions, 1) provide medication to dying kids and 2) erect statues of Benedict Arnold. A budget cut is proposed, obviously they should stop erecting statues of Benedict Arnold, but they will propose cutting services to dying kids in order to maintain the budget.

He says the example is extreme, but you can see the same pattern everywhere.

The whole article is here https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/03/13/budget-politics

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: Why do tax cuts have to be funded?

I remember the same expressed in a joke along the lines of getting to a checkout with a multi-pack of nappies and a case of beer. Finding a shortage of cash in hand, and one of them having to go back on the shelf, the beer gets purchased.

[Filippo]

Re: Why do tax cuts have to be funded?

They do, sometimes. It's still called "funding", as in "this tax cut will be funded by slashing the welfare budget".

At some point, the reason tax cuts have to be funded is, well, simple arithmetic. The money has to come from somewhere. There are some ways to create money out of nowhere (with a whole lot of caveats), but such creation would still need to be documented and tracked, and such tracking would be the funding of whatever you then spend the money on.

I'm not sure what a "not-funded" tax cut would be in practice, but I figure it would be funded by deficit spending.

[Roj Blake]

Re: Why do tax cuts have to be funded?

Lowering expenditure is one way of funding a tax cut.

[Diogenes]

Learnt a new word

I have not seen sportswashing, but I am familiar with greenwashing and its cousin pinkwashing (pink = breast cancer in case that doesn't translate outside Aus).

[WizzerWotsit]

Unprecedented

Can we have this word removed please!!!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Unprecedented

Removing a word? That would be...unprecedented!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fake news?

"False, often sensational, information disseminated under the guise of news reporting"

Surely, "the truth painted to appear a lie because it disagrees with your viewpoint"

[MiguelC]

Re: Fake news?

both, depending on context