No single phrase actually owned 2023. Not like earlier years, when teal stole the present, or Karen, or covidiot, there loomed no shoo-in this time spherical. Nonetheless, one phrase wanted crowning, our conclave assembling a number of weeks again, gathering on-line to vote for Macquarie Dictionary’s Phrase of the Yr.
Alison Moore, the dictionary’s chief editor, mustered the nerds, together with Victoria Morgan (managing editor), Jack Steyn (assistant editor), Tiger Webb (ABC’s language specialist) and this scribe. After a number of late adjustments to the longlist, from Bazball (Sport) to skimpflation (Enterprise), the sifting started.
Delulu, algospeak, bopo – the Macquarie Dictionary’s phrases of the 12 months have some rizz.
Notably, throughout 13 classes, from Arts to Tech, there was no Covid shortlist this 12 months. Which isn’t to say the witch is lifeless, however extra the witch and her subvariants now not solid a hex on the nationwide psyche. Spicy cough has been subbed off by debt-trap diplomacy (Politics) and hay run (Setting).
Earlier voting, earlier than the assembly, foreshadowed faves amongst every set. Although nothing was set in stone. Each class drew debate. From romantasy (romance-fantasy style) to delulu (slang for deluded), 2023 was a real check of democracy.
Judging relied on three standards. One: how nicely does the phrase convey its that means? Two: is it one thing new? And lastly, does it seize a facet of 2023? Collins had already jumped the gun, lending AI its annual cheer, although Macquarie dealt in neologisms solely. Therefore, boreout (“a state of demotivation in a single’s job”) featured as an alternative of its confirmed cousin in burnout. Whereas teal, final 12 months’s champ, was a family color that had gained a brand-new that means.
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Meantime in Canberra, the Australian Nationwide Dictionary Centre bestowed their garland to Matildas, one other acquainted phrase revamped in 2023. To cite Dr Amanda Laugesen, the Centre’s director: “It’s solely because the mid-Nineties that the ladies’s soccer crew has been referred to as the Matildas, however after this 12 months’s World Cup the phrase has as soon as once more cemented itself in our lexicon.”
Bopo received our class nod in Well being, quick for physique optimistic, tying with scrotox (a botox prep of the male baggage), but neither formed as total winner. Ditto for yimby (yes-in-my-backyard to native growth) and bridesmaid suburb: “a location amid the most costly or sought-after suburb in a sure space”. Or Sport’s silent stroll – a gadget-free amble – which our ancestors as soon as referred to as “a stroll”.
Issues modified at excessive midday, as every choose voted for his or her prime three throughout class winners, seeing a handful recur. Finally, blue-sky flood received bronze, the place a river can spill lengthy after the rain has give up, glutted by water upstream within the system. Silver was algospeak, a artful apply of writing seggs as an alternative of intercourse, say, or unalive over suicide, as a method of bypassing on-line moderation.