Bracing for the Bulxit
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The coining of the neologism and hybrid term “Brexit” to denote the British exit from the European Union has language freaks like me drooling into our beer. Consider the possible neologisms that might result from the exit of the 27 remaining nations. Many
But a Bexit might refer to either Belgium or Bulgaria. In such cases, we could merely add another letter from the nation’s name. This would give us a Belxit and a Bulxit, both a bit awkward, and the latter sounding uncomfortably close to a common vulgarism associated with bovine faecal matter.
Polxit (Poland) and Porxit (Portugal) might be easily confused, and Ireland and Italy pose a special problem. Which of them gets Ixit? Irxit and Itxit both sound terrible. But, gliding gracefully around this difficulty, we leap dexterously to the “L” nations. From Latvia, Lithuania and Luxembourg we’ll get the euphonious Laxit, Lixit and Luxit. Croatia and Cyprus will give us the awkward Croxit and Cyxit, but such dissonance will be more than offset by the delightful Fixit (Finland) and Czexit (Czech Republic).
Estonia gives us the barely pronounceable Esxit or Estxit (I didn’t say this would be easy), and when we get to Slovakia and Slovenia we have to give five letters to the name of the country in order to end up with Slovaxit and Slovexit. Granted, those names can easily get mixed up, but I could never tell the difference between the two countries anyway.
Clearly, wordsmiths have more work to do in devising a system of euphonious exit terms for all 27 countries. But, if the entire European Union breaks up, none of it will be necessary, for then we’ll have the ultimate exit: the Euxit.
Ye Old Pedant
(Someday to be known as Ye Olde Pexit)
