The collocation, I mean, seeing girl in numerous combos, from sad girl music (see Ruby Gill or Phoebe Bridgers) to lazy girl job (akin to quiet quitting). Kelly Pau in Salon views this girl phenom as a patriarchal pushback, a bid to fortify an enfeebled term into the grit of riot grrl, the go-girl war-cry, the girlboss icon.

Tellingly, as Pau writes, “the 2010s saw TV shows like Girls, New Girl and 2 Broke Girls reflect our concept of young women attempting to adjust to adulthood.” Director Greta Gerwig, and actor Margot Robbie, turbocharged the trend, spreading the Girl Gospel aboard their Barbie juggernaut.

Meanwhile on Instagram, US journalist Amanda Knox has coined pregspreading, a woman’s prenatal alternative to manspreading. Just as Cambridge Dictionary’s website welcomes the newborn likes of robotherapist to hurriquake (a real-world equivalent of sharknado).

As a keen spy, watching the Cambridge site like a broker sweating on the stock index, I await the day the word-scroll ends, when English has been declared full. Finite. Enough already! But that day never comes. Instead, up pops heat storm, resilience hub and autobesity (the endless upsizing of cars).

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Despite the endless flood of neologisms, Macquarie has admirably released a new edition, fatter and richer for its recent intake, but never pretending to be complete. No dictionary has that luxury, not any more. In terms of sheer sprawl, English makes manspreading (even pregspreading) seem almost demure.

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