If you are impervious to dust, you may do none of the above, but if you lux your home, and lux alone, chances are you are from the South.
The Oxford English Dictionary has added the distinctly South Island term to its latest lexicographical update, fuelling comedians and online pundits, and leading to light-hearted cultural reflection from the mainland’s great and good.
The dictionary said "luxing", which appeared in 1980 as Electrolux and cornered the South Island market, meant "to clean (a floor, room, etc) with a vacuum cleaner".
Despite other manufacturers sucking up market share during the intervening decades, the verb stuck, and persists today.
Clutha mayor and lifelong South Otago resident Bryan Cadogan said he recalled boyhood chores in his family home.
"Mum was always house-proud and she would definitely ‘lux’ the floors, while I had to clean the architraves with a wet rag."Electrolux must have dominated the market back then, because you never hear anyone call it anything else down south. I’m just surprised it’s only made it into the dictionary in 2025, because it’s been around as long as I can remember."
Also on the list are cuzzy bro, lifestyler, rark, rark up, sweet as, to climb into (someone), to deal to (someone) and trundler.
The wide-ranging update also includes new additions from East Africa, the Caribbean, the Isle of Man and Wales, adding to the more-than-500,000 word and phrase variants the dictionary already contains.
List of words added
• cuzzy bro, noun
• hapū, adjective
• lifestyler, n, sense 3
• lux, verb 2
• mōrena, int
• rark, v
• rark up, n
• sweet as, adj
• to climb into (someone), in climb, v
• to deal to (someone), v
• trundler, n
