Could ‘vapo’ catch on in Australia? – give us a break

Vape is Oxford Dictionaries’ international word of the year for 2014, according to a story by Julian Drape for The Age newspaper.

Software that scours the Internet indicated that the use of the word vape doubled between 2013 and 2014.

“That’s a steady and sizeable growth,” senior editor Fiona McPherson was said to have told the Australian Associated Press.

“But it’s nothing like ‘selfie’ – that was so ridiculously phenomenal.” Selfie was the 2013 word of the year.

Drape’s story tells how the earliest known use of the word vape was made in a 1983 UK magazine article on smoking in which Rob Stepney described a hypothetical device as: “an inhaler or ‘non-combustible’ cigarette, looking much like the real thing, but delivering a metered dose of nicotine vapour. (The new habit, if it catches on, would be known as vaping.)”

And since Drape’s story was written for an Australian newspaper, it almost inevitably starts with speculation about whether or not the word ‘vapo’ will supplant ‘smoko’ as a term for a break in the working day.

But perhaps that’s unlikely since it’s illegal in Australia to sell electronic cigarettes with nicotine.

Drape’s story is here.