New trendy academic word for the time being:

"Sharpen".

A few weeks ago, a friend in a different state used that word when I was giving her feedback on her conference remarks draft over the phone, then the next day in class a professor I work with used that as well, in public feedback over student work...

I remember back when "flag" was new, and it sounded so fresh, though it's now just part of run-of-the-mill academic lingo.

Too, for a while recently, "gives purchase" was the thing  to say, but I think that that was too wordy to ever really catch on widely, and it already seems to be dying out.

I also was recently hearing academics say that "not my wheelhouse" thing, but never in academic contexts, really.

Whenever I hear that, too, I always want to say, "That's not my grindhouse."

I wonder what people would do if I said that really seriously, as if I was making a mistake.