The Welfare Reform Act 2012 proposed various changes to the rules governing social security benefits in the UK, including an 'under-occupancy penalty' to be imposed on households that were receiving housing benefit and that were judged to have bedrooms surplus to their requirements. Critics and opponents soon began to refer to the new penalty as the 'bedroom tax'. The first references to the bedroom tax in our corpus appear in 2011 but usage increased dramatically around the time this new provision came into force, in April 2013.
binge-watch, verb:
to watch multiple episodes of a television programme in rapid succession, typically by means of DVDs or digital streaming. [origin 1990s: from binge +watch, after binge-eat, binge-drink.]
The word binge-watch has been used in the circles of television fandom since the late 1990s, but it has exploded into mainstream use in 2013. The original context was watching programmes on full-season DVD sets, but the word has come into its own with the advent of on-demand viewing and online streaming. In 2013, binge-watching got a further boost when the video-streaming company Netflix began releasing episodes of its serial programming all at once. In the past year, binge-watching chalked up almost as much evidence on our corpus as binge-eating. (Binge-drinking remains unchallenged in the top position, at least for the moment.)
bitcoin, noun:
a digital currency in which transactions can be performed without the need for a central bank. Also, a unit of bitcoin. [origin early 21st century: from bit, in the computing sense of 'a unit of information' and coin.]
The term first appeared in late 2008 in a research paper, and the first bitcoins were created in 2009. By 2012, the virtual currency was attracting wider attention and we began to see its steadily increasing use. A spike in usage was apparent in March – May 2013, which may be due in part to the market crash around that time.
olinguito, noun:
a small furry mammal found in mountain forests in Colombia and Ecuador, the smallest member of the raccoon family. (Taxonomic name Bassaricyon neblina) [origin 2013: diminutive form of olingo, a South American mammal resembling the kinkajou.]
The discovery of the olinguito was announced by the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in August 2013: it represented the first identification of a new species of mammalian carnivore in the Western hemisphere in 35 years. Extensive coverage of the story in the world’s media was guaranteed by the animal’s appearance — it was described as looking like a cross between a teddy bear and a domestic cat.
schmeat, noun, informal:
a form of meat produced synthetically from biological tissue. [origin early 21st century: perhaps from synthetic and meat, influenced by the use of '- -, schm - -' as a disparaging or dismissive exclamation (e.g. fancy schmancy: 'some of the gourmet sauces you get in fancy schmancy places are just too spicy for me').]
Man-made meat is more commonly (and neutrally) known as 'in-vitro meat' or 'cultured meat'. This word remains very rare, largely because the phenomenon it refers to is still in its infancy. However, in August 2013, the world's first hamburger made with in-vitro meat was served up by Dutch scientists, raising the possibility that the general public may have more occasion to use this word in the not-too-distant future.
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