Credit crunch or recession?

Today's Metro includes the following news headline:

Bag snatches
rise as credit
crunch bites

Perhaps someone should let the paper know that 'credit crunch' isn't a synonym for 'recession'.

Tellingly, the body copy doesn't mention 'credit crunch' once but does refer to "rising unemployment... caused by the recession".

However I suppose that neither 'recession' nor 'unemployment' would have fit quite so easily in that three-deck headline.

(I would scan in the article but the scanner seems to be on the blink.)

The credit crunch is over - recession is here

Last week the editor-in-chief made in plain to us subs: our publications should now refer to the 'recession' rather than the 'credit crunch' or even the 'economic downturn' .

Not a surprising call, but it's always good to have guidance.

Incidentally, BBC Breakfast last week used the term 'the long slump', which I thought sounded suitably sinister.

Cripes, Boris, it's Susie Dent again

From Thursday's thelondonpaper:

According to experts, 2008 has already given the English language more than 100 new words, ranging from the common "credit crunch" to "glamping" - to describe posh camping. Top of the list is "Cripes!" meaning surprise or shock, synonymous with Boris Johnson.

Where do I start? We've already had the discussion on whether 'credit crunch' is a word, so I'll leave that to one side. But is BoJo really synonymous with surprise or shock? And who else here knew of 'cripes' (with or without initial cap and exclamation) before 2008?

Thelondonpaper adds:

[Cripes] has joined a list of other words which have been so well-used in the past year they could be included in the Oxford English Dictionary

So only well used words make it into the OED? And 'cripes' isn't in the OED? Anyone have one to hand to confirm this? 'Cripes' is in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, so it would be utterly shocking if it wasn't in the full OED as well.

And who are these 'experts'? The only one named in the article is Susie Dent, who I'm guessing is on a mission to shift a few copies of her new book.

OUP Word of the Year: credit crunch

Oxford University Press emailed The Engine Room this morning to inform us that the OUP UK Word of the Year – "as chosen by Countdown's Susie Dent" – is 'credit crunch'.

You can see Susie pictured here on the front cover of her new book, Words of the Year, which is published by OUP. I suspect some kind of tie-in.

Anyway, I can understand the arguments for 'credit crunch' as word of the year: it's highly topical, in common use, nicely alliterative, and so on.

But there's one very strong argument against: 'credit crunch' isn't a word, as most people understand the term – it's a phrase. A noun phrase, to be more specific.

I suppose that 'OUP Word or Noun Phrase of the Year' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

(It's probably worth mentioning here that I went for a very appealing job at OUP a few years ago and, shockingly, didn't get it. Not that I'm bitter at all.)


So what would be your word or noun phrase of the year?