This year, singular 'they' beat out 'thanks, Obama' (a sarcastic phrase blaming the President for things, often minor, totally beyond his control), 'ammosexual' (from the most creative category; used to describe a "firearm enthusiast"), and 'ghost' as a verb (to describe leaving a relationship abruptly or without notice; voted most likely to succeed) for the Word of the Year honor.
Reading her account of the way great apes have been taught to use sign language, and about the phrases they have coined for things absent from their acquired vocabulary, it seems that it is humans who lose out.Chimpanzees have called watermelon "drink fruit", a hot radish "hurt-cry food", Alka-Seltzer a "listen drink" and a Brazil nut "rock berry".
The "uncanny valley" is a phrase coined to describe our revulsion for things that seem very nearly human, but are not quite "right".
The Houyhnhnms never lie, but their puzzled phrase for lying - "saying the thing that was not" - also covers ambiguity, irony, exaggeration, parody and most of what we would call humour.
This comes out in a knack for phrasing things just so.
It's always a little dangerous to take the artist's word for things; but these are phrases I'd yearn to see critics write.
As she ate she tried to memorize phrases printed at the bottom of the menu, for things like "delicious" and "water" and "check, please".
How to greet people, how to ask for things, even just a few phrases will help you tremendously.
The only way for things to "work out", a recurrent phrase, is to move forward, boats against the current.
Keep your ears open for things like "this is important" or "listen up" or phrases that might indicate that you need to know something.
