‘Democracy Sausage’ Wins 2016 Word Of The Year Over ‘Smashed Avo’; Weird Year Huh?
This year every major political conversation in Australia had some sort of food component.
Oooft, what a long year. It doesn’t even feel like Australia’s federal election took place in 2016 — but it did! It was in July! What a time.
Today The Australian National Dictionary Centre have announced their word of the year (it’s not technically a single word, which is weird because I thought if anyone would be pedantic it’s The Australian National Dictionary Centre) and it is ‘democracy sausage’.
That’s right, the only pleasant thing to come out of election days and something that Australians are far more keen to discuss than actual politics — so much so that there are several sites dedicated to mapping out which polling stations have the best sausies on offer — has finally been recognised.
The word was chosen by “pop culture research” conducted at the centre at ANU.
We brought a very special Oz Election Day tradition to a Washington polling station. @BreakfastNews @ABCTV pic.twitter.com/fhkJBzGB3b
— Michael Rowland (@mjrowland68) November 8, 2016
“Arguably, the democracy sausage has been one of the best things to come out of a tumultuous year in politics and political campaigning,” said Amanda Laugesen from the centre, which may be the most depressing thing that has ever been said by anyone.
So what were the runners up? ‘Smashed avo’ came close, on account of The Australian columnist, Bernard Salt, saying that millennials aren’t able to buy houses because we’re too busy hoarding avocados and feta like we’re preparing for armageddon.
‘Census fail’ was up there (remember when the census was ‘hacked’ and no-one could do it and we all laughed?) and ‘shoey’ was also a contender, which is vaguely confusing because shoey has been around for ages, but I guess Doctor Karl has only done it recently.
Congratulations, democracy sausage! Let’s watch Doctor Karl do a shoey again.