Donald Trump Jr puzzled the House committee investigating the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol by reporting that he had told Trump’s Chief of Staff that he had to persuade Trump ‘to condemn this sh*t ASAP’ (i.e., the violent taking of the Capitol). Meadows agreed. Trump Jr went on to say’ this one you go to the mattresses on.’
Read MoreA loose unit is, I think, a variation on the football use of big unit and describes someone (let’s face it, a bloke — this is all bloke talk) who is a law unto themselves, a maverick. Complete disregard for the rules. Does stuff that others would regard as hair-raisingly risky or shocking.
Read MoreA ghost candidate — one who is nominally up for election but has never been sighted in the electorate — is not an entirely new phenomenon but this is the first election where we have had so many of them.
Read MoreWhen we approach an election I am always on alert for the significant words or phrases that become permanent items of Australian English. John Howard produced one in the 2001 Election — the barbecue stopper, and now we always ask What’s the barbecue stopper for this election?
Read MoreWhen Anthony Albanese gave an interview in which he worked perhaps too hard to present himself as middle-of-the-road and centrist in his views, it was summed up by the Daily Telegraph as Albanese claiming “I am not WOKE!’ This was promptly followed by Morrison claiming to be even more woke. It all became a bit ridiculous — except that it is all deadly serious.
Read MorePoliticians who are both blue (Conservative) and green (environmentalist) are now identified as teal which is a mix of blue and green.
Read MoreThis is not a common colloquialism, restricted as it seems to be these days to the context of sport, in particular cricket and football (all codes), where it means an over-the-top enthusiast for the game. It seem to be particularly strong in Victoria.
Read MoreThere is at the moment one definition of the quokka in the Macquarie Dictionary.
But we are about to have a second definition.
Read MoreI see this as a stab of lightning going from China to Russia. Morrison has chosen to follow the idea of having a snappy mantra as George Bush did with the Axis of Evil. I’m not sure that Arc of Autocracy has the same impact as Axis of Evil. Autocracy is a bit of a clunky word.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreI have never quite understood the claim to be ‘a living person’, sometimes ‘a natural person’, made by people who describe themselves as sovereign people. They have much the same beliefs as sovereign citizens but possibly favour the Magna Carta as their justification rather than the American Constitution or other American texts. They also feel that the term sovereign citizen seems to admit to a citizenship which they deny.
Read MoreElections always throw up key words and phrases so lexicographers follow them with interest for both the politics AND the lexicon. But who would have thought that one of the first salvos in the election that is on everyone’s mind (though not officially called yet) would be the term Manchurian candidate.
ZG: 8
Possibly this will create a revival for the movie as we all try to work out what the term Manchurian candidate could mean in this Australian context.
Read MoreThe year has barely begun and already the new words are rolling in. So it is some satisfaction to package up last year’s collection into an ebook called New Words 2022: Changes in Australian English. You can read about it here.
Read MoreIt would seem that the campaign by the New Zealand Manuka Honey Appellation Society to trademark Manuka Honey as a specifically New Zealand name not to be used by others (particularly Australians) is not going too well. For the story so far check my blog on manuka or tea-tree.
ZG: 7
I think we all feel strongly that words in the general domain should not be captured and owned by commercial interests.
Read MoreObviously the bulk of the new words this year were to do with COVID-19. Some were jokey words related to our reactions to COVID. But other things have happened.
P.S. You can check out any words you don’t know under New Words.
P.P.S This is the final blog for this year. Happy Christmas everyone.
Read MoreThe Americans have been doing metaphorical heavy lifting since the 1930s. Before that heavy lifting was something unmetaphorical done by people, such as wharfies or weight lifters, or machines, such as cranes.
Read MoreThese are newly minted pronouns which extend the traditional range to meet the needs of the LGBTI+ community. We used to have she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs but to this we can add xe/xem/xyr, or a range of variations on this theme.
Read MoreWhen Daniel Andrews commented on how different the treatment accorded to NSW by the Federal Government was to the treatment Victoria received when it went into lockdown, he was promptly labelled a whinger by various people. This led me to consider the place that the whinger has in Australian culture.
Read MoreWhen the first edition of the Macquarie Dictionary was published I included in it a small newsletter that told the dictionary users a little about the dictionary team and invited them to become contributors. I explained that dictionary editors are like word catchers setting out to cast their nets and ensnare word butterflies.
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