Status: 01/01/2023 3:55 p.m
“Social tourism”, “climate glue” and the omnipresent Chancellor’s neologism “double boom” – they can all be found in the annual list of the “Floskelwolke” initiative. Your number one, however, was the “degraded” term “freedom”.
The language and media-critical initiative “Floskelwolke” has chosen the term “freedom” as the phrase of the year 2022. The concept of freedom is “degraded by egomaniacs who ruthlessly undermine democratic social structures”. In the name of freedom, they “self-righteously and without solidarity turned the essential values of a welfare state into the opposite – all for their own benefit”. “Freedom” is not the object of criticism and not an empty phrase, “but only its egoistic misinterpretations allow it to degenerate into a cliché”.
The basis for awarding the negative prize were suggestions from the readers of the “Floskelwolke” web project. According to the information, more than 70 terms and formulations were submitted.
“Cluster cloud”: “Open to technology” defends the outdated
The term “social tourism” came in second. He suggests that immigrants come to Germany mainly because of social benefits. The next ranks are followed by the adjective “open to technology”, which is used to defend old-fashioned technologies, and the alliteration “climate glue”, which reduces people to their form of protest, regardless of their goals.
The term “double boom”, with which Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) advertised the 200 billion euro relief package to deal with the energy crisis, came in fifth. The subsidies for energy companies and consumers cost so much that they can only be conveyed onomatopoeic.
The “Cluster of the Year” was awarded for the third time. In 2021, “personal responsibility” received the negative award, in 2020 “individual cases” made it. The “cloud of phrases” was launched in August 2014. The aim is to hold up a mirror to the professional news business. Criticized are phrases, phrases and questionable formulations in German-language news texts.