Grexit - a rant.

On the whole I welcome new words into the English language, but this one sounds like the death-rattle of a piece of seized-up machinery...

...hm.

Perhaps it's a better word than I thought.

Grexit is a squeezing together of the words Greek and exit - exit from having the Euro as its currency, that is.

Apart from the resemblance of the word to the cry of a constipated corncrake, grexit takes the eek out of Greek exit: and I really don't think that this is what the people who use it are trying to do.

Word Not To Use Today: grexit. Look, it doesn't take much longer to say Greek exit, does it. It's not as if grexit has any wit or flair.

Unlike Eurogeddon, which has both.

Grexit was coined on 6th February 2012 by Willem H Butler and Ebrahim Rahban. I don't know if it was a slip of the tongue, or whether they were just having a rather dull day.

STOP PRESS: things have got even worse. Today, 31/05/2012, I regret to announce first sightings of Spexit (Spanish exit) and Spanic (Spanish panic).

I don't know, I think I might eventually get to like Spanic, though.