XYZ

The 2011 XYZ Festival of New Words is held in Le Havre every year. It's a celebration of neologism and is intended to provoke debate on the French language and bring it into the 21st Century (I typed 20th century first time around, but that may be unfair...)

This weekend the festival announced its word of the year:

attachiant(e) – someone you cannot live with but cannot live without. A combination of attachant (captivating, endearing) and the slang word chiant (bloody nuisance).

Second was aigriculteur - a farmer unhappy with his lot in life. A combination of agriculteur (farmer) with aigri (embittered) and with just a hint of aïe! (French for ouch!).

I took this photo last week on the outskirts of London

Other words the festival has thrown up are bête seller, describing a particularly awful literary work that becomes an instant hit, the timely eurogner – euro plus rogner (to cut down) – to suggest making savings in the euro zone, and a verb, textoter (to write SMS messages on a mobile telephone), to compliment last year's winner, a phonard – a pejorative term for someone who is glued to their mobile phone.

Canary Wharf, London. The natural habitat of phonards

Even though I have read a number of bête seller in the past, the only one of these words I can imagine I will use with any frequency is phonard, but it's good to know the other words are available, just in case.

Simon