A dictionary with dictation

The Australian National Dictionary Centre recently made ranga its word of the month and added it to the Oxford Australia Dictionary. The story of how it came to prominence is an interesting one – not hard when Jonah Takalua plays a role. Ranga is an abbreviation of orang-utan (a primate with reddish-brown hair native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia). The first written evidence for the term as applied to red-haired people appears in Australian newspapers in the early 2000s. There is earlier US evidence for the use of ranga as a general term of abuse (equating to calling someone a monkey) but the specific application to red-haired people is Australian. The word ranga first received wide exposure in 2007 when it was used in the first episode of Summer Heights High. But enough about that crap because once again, North Korea has blatantly defied United Nations Security Council resolutions and ignored international appeals not to proceed with a rocket launch. North Korea successfully launched said rocket today at 10am local time (2pm NZ time), boosting the "credentials" of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents. The rocket - which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit - has been labelled by the United States, South Korea, and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far as the continental United States, who should themselves be using said technology back. North Korea have already messed up one rocket launch this year, and it cost them a lot of money. And speaking of money, the radio station at the centre of a hoax call that tragically backfired has pledged money - in other words, all advertising profits for the remainder of 2012 - to the family of a London nurse who took her own life. Jacintha Saldanha answered a hoax call from presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian of Sydney station 2Day FM, who impersonated the Queen and Prince Charles as they sought information about the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge's condition. Ms Saldanha passed the call to a duty nurse who gave the presenters confidential information about the Duchess. The 46-year-old mother of two was found dead in London on Friday in an apparent suicide.