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prettygoodword ([personal profile] prettygoodword) wrote2012-07-05 07:32 am

omnishambles

omnishambles (om-nee-SHAM-buhls) - n., something that is badly organized or mismanaged in every possible way.


Coined by a writer on the BBC television show The Thick of It in 2009, and now a hot buzzword in the UK because of its use this past April by the leader of the opposition to describe the government's budget proposal. Omni- is, of course, from Latin all, every, while shambles now means a place of disorder, originally in Middle English a slaughter house, from Old English sceamel, a stool or table, from Latin scamillum, diminutive of scamnum, bench.

---L.