The bizarre internet craze of 'planking' is set to lose its cult online status to the increasingly popular trend of 'owling'.
Hundreds of young people in America, Australia and now, Britain, have taken up the new 'owling' craze.
It consists of crouching on one's haunches and staring into the middle distance, like an owl.
Participants then take photos of themselves and post them on Facebook or on other social networking sites.
Extra kudos is earned for those who do it in unusual situations.
The trend is a development of the popular craze of 'planking' in which people would take pictures of themselves lying face down in strange locations.
However, in recent months ‘planking’ has become increasingly mainstream – and thus less popular on the trend-conscious internet.
Last month the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay posted pictures of himself planking – a development that prompted trend-watchers to declare the craze ‘officially dead’.
'Owling' is believed to have started in Australia within the last few weeks.
Indeed, it is so new that the Wikipedia entry for 'owling' describes the practice as being a term used in the Middle Ages to describe the ‘the smuggling of sheep or wool from England to another country.
Despite its relative youth, the owling craze already has two popular Facebook groups dedicated to it, onto which more than 1,000 people are listed as members.
Other social websites including Reddit also feature pictures of young people taking part in the craze.
The trendspotting site Buzzfeed has described 'owling' as a 'worthy successor' to planking. (Daily Mail)
《字詞解析》
spring up － (phr. v.) (如雨後春筍般) 湧現；突然而迅速地出現。
craze － (n.) 風靡一時的事物；狂熱。
planking － (n.) 仆街。
cult － (adj.) 受崇拜的 (僅用在名詞前)。Cult 當名詞用時是個很常見的新聞用語，意為「邪教」。
owling － (n.)「棲街」(暫譯)。根據這篇報導，這是網路，或更精確地說，臉書及其他社群網站，繼仆街之後興起的新流行狂熱。「棲街者」像貓頭鷹 (owl) 棲於樹上一樣蹲坐在一些不尋常的地點，雙眼凝視前方，然後拍照並將照片上傳到網路與粉絲分享。
take up － (phr. v.) 開始從事；開始對…產生興趣。
crouch － (v.) 蹲坐；彎腰。Crouch on one's haunches 一定是「蹲坐」。
haunch － (n.) (人的) 臀部。
kudos － (n.) 榮耀；聲望；讚揚。這個字本身就有個 s，並非複數，而是個不可數名詞，所以接單數動詞。
mainstream － (n.) 主流。
trend-conscious － (adj.) 講究時尚的；重視時尚的。
trend-watcher － (n.) 時尚觀察家；趨勢觀察家。
relative youth － (n.) 相對的年輕。這是說「棲街」與仆街相比還是個很新的網路流行時尚。
trendspotting － (adj.) 時尚追蹤的；流行追蹤的。
延伸閱讀：新聞英語的語法結構