The ‘Word Of The Year’ Shortlist Is Here And I Might Just Have A Menty-B
As expected, COVID-19 continues to dominate the Word of the Year shortlist.
Who among us hasn’t had a lockdown-induced menty-b this year? Well, apparently enough of us did for the word to land on Macquarie Dictionary’s 2021 Word of the Year shortlist.
Yep, and menty-b isn’t the only COVID-related word on the list either. Just like last year, the Word of the Year shortlist is dominated by coronavirus feelings, which isn’t too surprising considering the pandemic is very much still happening.
Joining menty-b, which Macquarie defines as “a breakdown in one’s mental health”, is brain tickler (slang for the nasopharyngeal swabs used in COVID-19 tests), shadow pandemic (the increase in mental health problems and domestic violence because of the stresses and restrictions of COVID-19) and strollout (a word used to drag Scott Morrison’s piss poor and unbelievably slow vaccination rollout).
Oh, and Delta of course, which as we all know is the fast-spreading variant of coronavirus that put the world into a spin in 2021.
just saw someone call a mental breakdown a “menty b” and i am definitely going to start saying that
— nesrin danan (@blackprints) July 23, 2021
Beyond the COVID-19 additions, Macquarie has also put some new extremely online contenders up for Word of the Year too.
For example, “wokescold” is one of 19 words up for the title in 2021. Unfortunately for the woke-hating conservatives of the world, wokescold is apparently a person who scolds people who aren’t woke enough. And this basically goes hand-in-hand with hate-follow, which is pretty self-explanatory.
Macquarie has also included terms like dry scooping (ingesting pre-workout and protein powders without liquid), front-stab (the opposite of back-stab wherein a person openly betrays someone), and dump cake (the TikTok craze of dumping baking ingredients into a pan and cooking it).
2016 felt like a blindside. A backstab. This time would be a frontstab.
— Aman Adwin (@AmanAdwin) November 4, 2020
Other words on the list include brick-bait (a sales strategy shifting sales away from online stores), dignity suit (clothing designed for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia), and humane washing (misleading marketing around animal products). Last chance tourism, which describes travel to endangered landscapes, third place (a location where time is most spent after home and work) and sober curious (an interest in giving up alcohol) are also featured on the shortlist.
But in some extremely 2021 areas, NFT, range anxiety (stress Telsa owners face when trying to make it to a charger in time), and porch pirate (people who steal parcels from front doors) are on the list too.
The winner of the Word of the Year is set to be announced on November 30 and Macquarie will allow the public to vote on their favourite word before the committee settles on their own choice.
And while the Australian National Dictionary has already picked “strollout” as its Word of the Year, my money is firmly on menty-b to take out Macquarie’s with how many we’ve all had in the last 12 months.
You can vote for your fave word here!