KEY POINTS:
Top 10 words for 2006 as voted by Public Address readers:
1. Unbundled (the buzzword for telecommunications reform).
2. Peow Peow (from TV3s animated hit Bro' Town meaning sex).
3. Truthiness (a satirical term referring to the quality by which a person claims to know something intuitively, rather than using evidence).
4. Emo (a music style previously known as "emotional hardcore" which has developed into a subculture).
5. Coddingtonswallop (combo of Deborah Coddington and codswallop meaning nonsense).
6. Munter (a word resurrected thanks to a character on TV3's Outrageous Fortune of the same name).
7. Brouhaka (a brouhaha about the haka).
8. Schadenfreude (getting pleasure out of the misfortune of others).
9. Cancerous (used to describe an opposition leader by a PM in times of duress).
10. -gate (an overused suffix courtesy of Watergate e.g. paintergate, corngate, winegate ... enough already).
For more go to publicaddress.net.
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Job's worth award: Pity the poor bloke who drove himself and his wife to the airport for an international flight, only to break down in the drop-off zone. Explaining to his breakdown service provider that he would leave the car and membership card in the care of a friend while he went through departure , he was told that he had to be present, otherwise the service would not attend. The choice was simple - fly or stay.
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A New York City housing programme begun in the 1970s to encourage new construction has meant huge property tax discounts on certain buildings in Manhattan. Those who are still benefiting from that initiative include Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter, who saves $130,000 a year on his $4 million Trump World Tower apartment; designer Calvin Klein ($134,000 savings on his penthouse); and actress Natalie Portman, above, (saving $26,300 a year on her $5.8 million condo) (Source: News of the Weird)
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Strangest Coincidences: In 1979, the German magazine Das Besteran ran a writing competition. Readers sent in unusual stories, but they had to be based on true incidents. The winner, Walter Kellner of Munich, had his story published . He wrote about a time when he was flying a Cessna 421 between Sardinia and Sicily. He encountered engine trouble at sea, landed in the water, spent some time in an emergency dinghy and was then rescued. This story was spotted by an Austrian, also named Walter Kellner, who said that the German Kellner had plagiarised the story. The Austrian Kellner said that he had flown a Cessna 421 over the same sea, experienced engine trouble and was forced to land in Sardinia. It was essentially the same story, with a slightly different ending. The magazine checked both stories, and both turned out to be true, even though they were nearly identical. (Source: www.2spare.com)
