The global financial meltdown has spawned new words like 'staycation', 'brickor mortis' and 'bad banks', which could soon find their way into the famous Collins dictionary.
While 'staycation' means a holiday spent at home due to straitened financial circumstances, 'brickor mortis' is a period of difficult times in the housing industry, and 'bad bank' refers to a state-owned financial institution created to alleviate a financial crisis.
As well as the economic downturn, the trend in social networking has also been recognised.
One such phrase, 'social notworking' -- the practice of spending time unproductively on social networking websites especially when one should be working -- is on the shortlist, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Collins head of content Cormac McKeown said: "We'll be keeping an eye on these rather gloomy expressions.
With a bit of luck most of these will have slipped off the radar this time next year, but my money's on bad bank and staycation to stay the course."
In fact, the list of words, which could be included in the dictionary, are among the words to watch" for 2009.
Last year, new words introduced into Collins' official word list included credit crunch, sub-prime and downturn. And, the new set of words on the shortlist continues to reflect the economic gloom.
The new words will be monitored over the coming months to see if they deserve an entry.
They will make it into the dictionary after being judged on where and how often they are used, and in how many texts they appear over the course of the year.
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