In 2012 an Irish parliamentary committee hearing had degenerated into a raucous shouting match when a voice cut through the mayhem. “Chillax,” said Simon Harris. “I think everyone needs to take a step back here.”
The 25-year-old legislator’s intervention silenced and mystified his colleagues. One wondered if chillax was Latin. Use of the word made headlines. “All the young people know what ‘chillax’ is,” Harris told the Dáil the next day.
