2009年新闻里的流行词汇

战略再保证: Strategic reassurance
US President Barack Obama came carrying a new catchphrase for the Sino-US relationship during his Asia tour — “strategic reassurance.” The US administration’s new strategy toward China appears to mean that the two sides should reassure each other and the rest of the world that their development will not come at the expense of others.

钓鱼执法: Entrapment
Entrapment is the act of a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an illegal activity that they would not normally have done.

临时性: Temporary rape
The ironic phrase started from a court verdict that gave two former police assistants a lenient sentence of three years imprisonment for rape. The court in Zhejiang Province said it was because the defendants had committed a "temporary crime on a whim."

秒杀族: Seckill
The word was originally used in online games when some players or NPCs are killed in a second. It now refers to a group of Internet shoppers bidding zealously on auction items seconds before the deal is closed to gain a big bargain.

乙男: Otomen, pinky boy
The Japanese manga “Otomen” and its namesake TV drama features a boy with a secret: the things he really loves are cute dolls, cooking and sewing. The word “otomen” is a pun made of the Japanese word otome, meaning young girl, and the English word "men."

蚁族: Ant-like graduates
The phrase refers to university graduates in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai who can not find a job immediately after their graduation. Unwilling to return to their hometown, they live in densely populated apartments in remote parts of the city that are cheap. These students go out job hunting every day and only return to the rented house for a place to crash, like working ants in nature’s wild.

虾米族: Shrimp clan
The term is derived from a popular KFC item featuring seven intact fried shrimps between two pieces of regular bread. It triggers deep thoughts among young consumers over how to live a better life in limited space. The clan refers to those who make the most of their available resources to handle soaring housing prices and salary cuts to maintain their living standards during the global downturn.

官二代: The second officer generation
The term, another word popular over the Internet after “the second rich generation” and “the second poor generation,” refers to children from families of senior officials. Their privileges are based on their parents’ power or other useful networks, instead of their own accomplishments. This second generation is notorious for their domineering practices and other misdeeds that annoy the public.

范儿: Style
The Chinese term, popular mainly in northern China, refers to one's style --from dressing to general behavior.

被当爸: involuntary father
The term became popular when an obscure model said she had a child with actor Jude Law, confirmed by a DNA test. Law was then “forced to be someone’s father” because the model deliberately did not use contraceptives.

春夏季: Sprummer
The term, developed by Australian scientist Tim Entwisle, is a combination of spring and summer together with another new word “sprinter” indicating an early spring. The term refers to the season between spring and summer, the suggested additional period that is not clearly differentiated from the conventional four.