Cozzie livs has been crowned the Macquarie dictionary’s word of the year, with honourable mentions awarded to algospeak and blue-sky flood, while Australians awarded the people’s choice award to generative AI, ahead of skimpflation and rizz.
The Macquarie dictionary managing editor, Victoria Morgan, said colloquial terms for serious phenomena were over-represented in this year’s winning words – representing the stresses present on the mind of the Australian public.
While cozzie livs, a colloquial phrase for cost of living, “feels like a natural Australianism”, the term first appeared in the UK, according to the dictionary’s editorial committee.
“Cost of living [is] something that is impacting everybody,” Morgan said. “That was the committee’s choice, because it had such an impact, and there is a colloquial way of describing it.”
“In Australia, when something is very serious, we do love to make a colloquial term that [makes it] easy to discuss things in a more light-hearted manner.”
Cozzie livs was voted word of the year by Macquarie’s editorial committee, which awarded runner up to blue-sky flood, “which is also quite serious”, Morgan said. The word defines floods in low-lying areas caused by the flow of flood water, which has made its way from higher ground after substantial rainfall.
“The idea that there is a deluge coming, even though the sun is shining, is almost like the time bomb we’re all sitting on with climate change,” the committee said.
While blue-sky floods aren’t restricted to Australia, the dictionary found that more than 90% of references to the term were found within Australian sources.
Algospeak also made it to the committee’s list of runners-up. The noun defines a form of coded language used on digital platforms to replace words relating to things such as sex or violence, that would trigger a site’s moderation rules to remove a post. Real words, like “sex”, are replaced by innocuous words that sound similar, like “seggs”.
The word of the year is chosen from the selection of new words added to the dictionary’s latest edition, which this year welcomed Barbiecore and spicy cough, among others.
The dictionary culls the list of new words down to 70 across different subject categories, such as business, politics and fashion “to make sure we are not just focusing on one area of language”.
The committee, made up by the dictionary’s editorial staff, then chooses a winner from each category, and makes final decisions.
A shortlist of about 20 words is also distributed for a public vote to crown the people’s choice, which this year was generative AI – an artificial intelligence application that produces content such as text and images through the use of machine learning.
“The vote often sees what they think … is the funniest,” Morgan said.
But unlike people’s choice winners of the past (see last year’s contenders), generative AI “isn’t a clever or humorous construction”, the committee said.
“It shows that AI is figuring prominently in our minds this year.”
Skimpflation, which describes a reduction in the quality or quantity of a produce or service while the price remains the same, came second.
Other humorous words on the shortlist included angry water, to describe carbonated water, and the particularly Australian gravy day, which references the classic Paul Kelly song How to Make Gravy. Scrotox – botox for men’s genitalia – also made the cut, along with rizz, which describes a person’s skill to woo another person.
