Feedback is New Scientist’s popular sideways look at the latest science and technology news. You can submit items you believe may amuse readers to Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com

More viral than viral

If there’s one thing Feedback reliably enjoys, it’s a neologism: that is, a newly coined word or phrase. The past five years alone have seen the emergence of “bed rotting” (something Feedback would like to do more of), “doomscrolling” (something Feedback does rather too much of) and “sanewashing” (something that is approximately the opposite of what we do here). But how to describe the act of coining a new word? Feedback decided to invent the verb “to neologise”,…