nark

The second word in our political lexicon for 2022 is nark which is defined in Macquarie Dictionary as ‘a complaining person’ and ‘a spoilsport’.  In the Thesaurus spoilsport lines up with killjoy and wowser. Scott Morrison talked about the ‘narks … in the bubble’ who had ‘a crack’ at him for doing a spot of welding.  Morrison loves to distance himself from the pollies and bureaucrats and the media in Canberra and position himself as one of the people.

But wait a minute! We have done all this before. In the previous election Morrison carried on about ‘the Canberra bubble’ but on that occasion he was in Queensland and packing strawberries. We might have fallen for it the first time but I’m not so sure that it is having the desired effect the second time round.

The word nark is one of those disappointing ones where no one knows the origin for sure.  One theory is that it is Romani for ‘nose’ and this lines up with the English use of nose for an informer.

But in the case of nark the meaning ‘informer’ comes later than the original meaning of ‘troublemaker and generally obnoxious person’. The other theory is that it is from a French word naquoise meaning ‘cunning and deceitful’ borrowed into British underground slang in the 1840s.