手機版
2011，喧囂紛擾的一年，滋生出一大堆新詞。諸如“黑客組織六人組（Lulzsec）”，“手機竊聽”，“鄧文迪”之類在一夜之間家喻戶曉。可為什么迄今都沒有人編撰個小冊子來收錄這些詞匯？事實上，已經有了。你現在看到的就是。好了，不瞎扯了，讓我們逐一盤點2011熱門新詞吧。
馬甲登錄（Sock puppet）
Sock puppet原本是指用襪子做的木偶，加上紐扣作為它的眼睛。但是現在我們要說的是網絡新語“馬甲登錄（Sock puppet）”：換句話說，就是指人們為了引發熱議或促成一項事業（譬如阿米娜·阿拉芙博客）而在網絡上假裝成他人。這位署名Amina Arraf的博客主自稱是一名敘利亞女同性戀，其博客曾一度被視為精神家園。后來其真實身份曝光，原來“她”是英國愛丁堡大學的一位男生，“芳齡”四十。一波尚平一波又起，沒過多久，某女同性戀網站的一位編輯被證實是男性，“她”曾熱捧阿米娜的博客。這有點象電影《熱情似火》里的情節。當有人開始質疑阿米娜的真實性，恰巧，一家女同性戀酒吧里播出了英國第五頻道的一部紀錄片，于是流言迅速終結。下一個熱詞是…
虛擬現實（Structured reality）
過去有真人秀節目，當下也有，比如《埃塞克斯是唯一的生活方式》、《切爾西制造》、《絕望的利物浦主婦》...它們的共同點在哪？沒錯！他們全都是“虛擬現實”秀。“虛擬現實”的本質就是“亦真亦假”：劇中人物是真實的，他們的想法、情感、關系以及身體等等都是真實的，但是出于節目播出效果的考慮，制作人對情景在真實的基礎上作了少許的修改。比如在上周的劇情中，他們受指定要求站在某個規定的位置，拿起一瓶酒砸向“劈腿”男友。
啊！假如這就是你的生活。
事實上并非如此，你不過是位看客。選擇真人秀節目檔，實際上就是選擇花上60分鐘觀看一部貌似不做作的電視劇：沒有角色扮演，沒有劇本，夾雜有即興創作的那種。準確地說，就像老派情色電影中的某個場景，水管工和失意的主婦在有一搭沒一搭地對白，光線明亮卻沒有性愛場面。下一個熱詞是…
默克齊(Merkozy)
今年下半年，所有的經濟學家都在議論同一個問題：歐元區是否會瓦解？或分裂？或解體？或萬劫不復？什么樣的合成詞能準確描述這場火燒眉毛的災難？沒有人能給出答案。最終，他們泄氣了，開始歇斯底里地叫喊。為了安撫他們，德國總理安吉拉·默克爾和法國總統尼古拉斯·薩科齊雙雙亮相新聞發布會，齊唱雙簧提振民心。
自從本·阿弗萊克和詹妮弗·洛佩茲被媒體戲稱為本妮佛（Bennifer）后，但凡出現關系親密的兩人，媒體都會依葫蘆畫瓢把他們的名字進行拼合。比如，一會兒出來個布拉吉莉娜（"Brangelina"，即Brad Pitt和 Angelina Jolie），一會兒又冒出山姆曼達Samanda（《老大哥》中的雙胞胎sam和amanda；后來又有"Jedward"后起之秀（選秀節目中的雙胞胎John和Edward），不過，這些合成詞倒是不常出現在宣傳海報上。
不管怎樣，Merkozy這詞還是造得挺有趣，就連最正經的商業新聞版都堂而皇之地加以使用（但對于FT金融時報就難說了）。
Merkozy一詞用意何在？也許沒什么特別。但它為水深火熱的國債危機緩解了一絲壓力。下一個熱詞就是…
國債收益率（Bond yields）
今年，有近萬個含義模糊的經濟詞匯見諸報端。媒體如此不負責任地濫用新詞，仿佛讀者都知曉這些詞似的。一會兒說“bond yield”，一會兒又提“sovereign debt”。實在令人費解。有時候甚至連數字都遭受篡改。如同披頭士的經典老歌《Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds》或者喜劇演員史派克·密利根Spike Milligan的詩歌一樣令人迷幻。難怪整個經濟一團糟。
如果用英語還說不清一件事，那英語也不可能是世界上最通用的語言了。隨口說說，就等于是白說了。下一個熱詞是…
趴街一族（Planking）
帶攝像頭的智能手機的普及讓人類進入了前所未有的超級體驗，比如“趴街planking”就是其中的典例。趴街是指一個人面部朝下，以腹部為支撐點，全身象木板一樣筆直地趴在各種物體上，然后拍下照片上傳網上。 “趴街大比拼”在網絡上迅速走紅：趴客有意選擇各種高難度的地點（比如酒店陽臺，山頂，塌陷的五角星的中心等等），結果丑態百出，或是摔落下來，或是摔個半死。哎，只引得觀眾笑破喉嚨。笑歸笑，但是現實不是兒戲。
近期喪命的趴客也許顏面尚存，他們的軀體還直直地躺在原地，讓人以為是趴客的新花樣-“挺尸”。 可悲的“挺尸”，沒有一具吸引到眾人的眼球，除了穆阿邁爾·卡扎菲Muammar Gaddafi，他十月份喪生，其死亡照片蜂擁登上頭版。下一個熱詞…
阿拉伯之春（Arab spring）
2011年阿拉伯世界民眾的不滿情緒爆發，掀起一場推翻專制政體的運動熱潮。對于“阿拉伯之春”事件的報道，起初讓普通的電視觀眾有些摸不著頭腦。因為在以前的電視鏡頭里，反映的是阿拉伯人在游行示威中一臉憤慨地高喊“詛咒西方”或者焚燒約翰·巴洛曼之類人物的肖像。而現在呢，他們的形象一下子突然轉變成對抗獨裁領導者的正義之士。可媒體又一直沒報道過這些獨裁者的所作所為。你說突尼斯總統是殘忍暴君？那為什么不一早告訴我們？
難道象《超人II》中星系間的megabaddies，這些阿拉伯獨裁者才剛剛抵達這個星球，而媒體正迎頭趕上？如果他們沒有做出一些驚人的事（比如象卡扎菲上校這樣），我們就無從知曉他們的名字和長相，更別提他們為什么不得人心。那么我們可能蒙在鼓里傻傻地夾道歡迎，并且還給予空中支持。
說到新聞報道，不得不說，基本上前期的準備工作都做得不充分。拜托，媒體的朋友們：你們必須盡力對每件事都闡述清楚。下一個熱詞…
希格斯玻色子（Higgs Boson）
今年，科學家們進一步證實了希格斯玻色子（又稱為“神之粒子”）的存在。在此突破之前，只有科學家知道希格斯玻色子為何物，事后雖有媒體耐心的解釋報道，最終仍然只有科學家知道希格斯玻色子為何物。
所有科學詞匯都艱澀難懂，我的腦瓜子就很難掌握它們，過目即忘。你解釋給我聽，我能聽明白，確實能聽明白，但是你一走開，我的腦袋轉眼就一片空白。，從混沌到開竅又回歸混沌，我稱這種奇妙的現象為布魯克裂縫。科學家們幾時能深究下我這類現象，哈？
2011 was a hectic year – so hectic it required its own language. Phrases such as "Lulzsec", "phone hacking" and "Wendi Deng" suddenly became common currency. But why hasn't anyone printed a handy cut-out-and-keep handbook explaining what all this stuff means? Well, actually, they have. And you're already reading it. Shut up and keep going as we start our guide to the Buzzwords of 2011.
Sock puppetStop thinking about actual sock puppets with buttons for eyes and so on. We're talking about internet "sock puppets" here: in other words, people pretending to be someone else on the internet in order to win an argument – or, in the case of Amina Arraf, Syrian lesbian blogger, to further a cause. Amina's blog was held up as an inspiration – until "she" was revealed to be a 40-year-old student from the University of Edinburgh. Adding to the confusion, days later, one of the editors of a lesbian website that had promoted Amina's blog also turned out to be a man. It was a bit like the end of Some Like it Hot. Some began to suspect that lesbians, like leprechauns, might not actually exist at all. Fortunately, Channel 5 soon scotched these rumours with a docusoap set in a lesbian bar. Speaking of which …
Structured reality
Once upon a time we had docusoaps. Now we have The Only Way is Essex, Made in Chelsea and Desperate Scousewives … and what do they have in common? No, apart from that. That's right! They're all "structured reality" shows. "Structured reality" essentially means "not quite real": the people featured in the show are actual people, with actual thoughts and feelings and relationships and kidneys and anuses and so on, but the situations they find themselves in for the purposes of the show are slightly massaged into position by the producers. In other words, they're told to stand in a particular spot and toss a glass of wine over their boyfriend because he cheated on them in last week's episode.
Christ. Imagine if that was your life.
But it isn't your life. You're just watching it. And when you tune in to a structured-reality show you, the viewer, are actively choosing to spend 60 minutes watching a glossy-looking soap opera performed by non-actors half-improvising a non-script. It's precisely like a scene from an old-school porn film in which a plumber and a frustrated housewife trade clunky dialogue, but with better lighting and no onscreen sex. Speaking of which …
MerkozyThroughout the latter part of the year, every economist was debating one issue: would the eurozone collapse? Or crumble? Or meltdown and dribble into an abyss? No one could decide which combination of words best described the inevitable impending disaster. Eventually they gave up and simply started screaming. In a bid to distract them, German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy stood beside each other at press conferences and made reassuring cooing noises.
Ever since Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were rechristened "Bennifer" (100 years ago, in 1982), any two proximate individuals appearing in a newspaper must have their names combined by law. Sometimes it catches on ("Brangelina") and sometimes it sorta catches on (eg Big Brother twins "Samanda"; famous until toppled by "Jedward"), but it's rarely used in broadsheets (referring to "the killings of Frose West" is expressly forbidden by the Guardian's style guide).
"Merkozy", however, was a fun nickname even the driest business news section could print without blushing (although in the case of the FT it was hard to tell).
What did "Merkozy" actually mean? Nothing. But it provided light relief from all that depressing stuff about bond yields. Speaking of which …
Bond yields
Approximately 10,000 cryptic economic phrases suddenly popped up in news reports this year, nonchalantly bandied about as if the viewer knew what they meant. It was all "bond yield" this and "sovereign debt" that. Impenetrable. At one point, numbers were given "haircuts". That's like something out of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds or a Spike Milligan poem. No wonder the economy's in such a mess.
If something can't be described in plain English, maybe you shouldn't base an entire society on it. Just saying. As it is, the whole thing's been a pointless endeavour. Speaking of which …
Planking
The widespread distribution of camera-studded smartphones has led humankind to experiment with things it had never bothered attempting before, "planking" being a prime example. This was a shortlived craze that involved posing for a photograph while lying facedown in a rigid plank-like position. A game of planking one-upmanship quickly swept the internet, with plankers planking in increasingly perilous locations (eg balanced on hotel balconies, atop mountains, within the hearts of collapsing stars, etc) until clumsiness took over and people started toppling off things and dying. Oh, how the laughter dried in our throats. We thought it was harmless fun. But God had other plans.
Recently killed plankers whose bodies hadn't been carted away yet could always save face by pretending to have invented "stiffing" – lying on the ground being authentically dead. Sadly stiffing failed to take off as a meme until Muammar Gaddafi did it in October, creating front-page news in the process. If only he'd found a way to monetise the craze, he'd have been loaded. But he didn't. Because he was dead. Speaking of which …
Arab spring
Toppling leaders was all the rage in 2011 as people across the Arab world collectively decided they'd had just about enough of this bullshit. To the casual TV viewer, the Arab spring was initially confusing: previously, whenever the news showed you footage of furious Arabs marching in the streets, they were chanting "Death to the west" or burning effigies of John Barrowman or something. Now suddenly they were the good guys, and their despised dictatorial leaders were the bad guys – but the news hadn't really bothered explaining who these bad guys were before. The Tunisian president is a ruthless tyrant, you say? Why didn't you tell me this earlier?
It was as if these Arab despots had only just landed on the planet, like the intergalactic megabaddies from Superman II, and the news was playing catchup. We didn't know their names or what they looked like, or have much of a clue as to why they were unpopular – unless, like megabaddie Colonel Gaddafi, they'd previously done something awful to us, in which case we'd not only cheer from the sidelines, but also lend air support.
Basically, in terms of narrative, things hadn't been set up clearly enough during the first act. Come on, news: you really must try harder to explain this stuff. Speaking of which …
Higgs Boson
This year scientists got one step closer to confirming the existence of the Higgs Boson, aka the "God Particle". Prior to the breakthrough, only scientists knew what the Higgs Boson was, whereas afterwards, once the news had patiently explained it to everyone on the planet, only scientists knew what the Higgs Boson was.
Like all complex scientific concepts, I find it hard to grasp for more than three minutes at a time. You can explain it to me, and I'll understand it, really I will, but the moment you walk away, the knowledge starts invisibly drifting out of my head. I call this mysterious phenomenon by which I shift from ignorance to enlightenment, and then back to ignorance – the Brooker Gap. When are scientists going to look into that phenomenon, hmm?
