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After impacting almost every aspect of people's lives, the global financial crisis has now made it into the lexicon, with Australia's prestigious Macquarie Dictionary picking "toxic debt" as its word of the year for 2008.
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After impacting almost every aspect of people's lives, the global financial crisis has now made it into the lexicon, with Australia's prestigious Macquarie Dictionary picking "toxic debt" as its word of the year for 2008.
The noun is one of several new words that will be used in the annual update of the dictionary's online version (www.macquariedictionary.com.au) and which include "flashpacker," a backpacker who travels in relative luxury, "bromance," or an intense but non-sexual relationship between two males, and "textaholic," or someone who sends too many mobile phone SMSes.
"Last year was full of environmental concerns, but the other big thing that happened to us all was the financial crisis, and that has fueled coinage of our word of the year," publisher Sue Butler told the reporters.
"Our words all come from things that preoccupy us all, and are also a sign of how English speaking countries are getting closer together, and the strong trend is from US English these days," she added.
According to the dictionary, "toxic debt" refers to loans initially taken on as a legitimate business transaction, but which prove subsequently financially worthless, as the subprime loans which precipitated the global financial crisis.
The word was picked by the "word of the year" committee, which includes university academia as well as renowned Australian poet Les Murray.
The list of new words was also put up for a public vote, of which "flashpacker" was the winner.
Honorable mentions also go to "guerilla gardener," a person who plants gardens in areas controlled by councils or other organizations but neglected by them, and "lawfare," or the use of international law by a country to attack or criticize another country, especially a superior military power, on moral grounds.
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(Agencies)
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全球金融危機對人們生活的影響無處不在，如今它又成功躋身于大詞典。日前，“毒債（toxic debt）”一詞被澳大利亞權威詞典《麥夸里大字典》評選為2008年年度詞匯。
該詞將與其它幾個新詞一同被收錄至該詞典網絡版 (www.macquariedictionary.com.au)每年的最新詞匯表中，其它幾個新詞包括flashpacker（裝備較奢華的背包客），bromance（“男漫”，指兩個男性之間非性愛的親密關系）和textaholic（指愛發短信的人）。
出版商休?巴特勒在接受記者采訪時說：“去年我們的注意力都在環境問題上，但另一件影響到我們每個人的大事就是金融危機，它造就了我們的‘年度詞匯’。”
她說：“我們的詞匯都來自影響我們每個人的事件，這也是說英語國家之間關系日益緊密的一個表現，目前這一強勁的趨勢主要受到美式英語的推動。”
根據該詞典解釋，“毒債”指的是最初通過合法交易產生，之后變得不值錢的債務，如引發全球金融危機的次貸危機。
該詞由“年度詞匯”評選委員會選出，評選委員會成員包括大學學術界代表，澳大利亞著名詩人萊斯?穆雷也在其中。
最新詞匯表還面向公眾投票，“flashpacker”在票選中勝出。
獲得“榮譽獎”的詞匯還包括guerilla gardener（“游擊種地者”，指在政府或機構地盤上種植植物的人，常與管理者打游擊[但因種植綠色植物或蔬菜，起到綠化作用，又常被忽視或容忍]）和lawfare（“國際法戰”，指一國利用國際法，以道德為依據攻擊或指責另一國，尤指超級軍事強國）。
（實習生許雅寧 英語點津姍姍編輯）
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