Hearing that ‘omnishambles’ had made it into the Oxford Dictionaries online, made me smile as it’s silly season time in the news agenda. I’ve just got this post in before it silly season finishes.
Although to be fair I think the omnishambles item may have also made a mention at another time this year now, especially with that ‘Malcolm Tucker’ from the BBC’s ‘Thick of it’ aka Peter Capaldi also the new Doctor Who! But that’s another story…
That aside I wondered whether we still see these silly season news stories in today’s 24 hour, digitally-driven international news environment particularly as the breaking news comes in hourly from Syria and how the UK may respond this week.
So what is silly season? Well it’s that time when traditionally with Parliament in recess and many other bodies and organisations taking short holidays in August, and lots of people on summer holidays generally, papers needed to fill pages with arresting stories.
So the news agenda gets filled with ‘man bites dog – zombie killer alert’ stories that wouldn’t have made it in at any other time. So if you have one of those, you now know when best to release it… actually ‘killer zombie alert’ might also just make it in any time nowadays!
Wikipedia has a good definition of silly season and I was amused to read on that this is not just a UK phenomena. Indeed they have it in many places in Europe – take a look at some of the great names it’s called elsewhere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season
And finally, if you want to know about other words added to the Dictionary – selfie, twerk and digital detox, take a look at this article for more:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/aug/28/omnishambles-new-words-oxford-dictionaries