As cost-of-living pressures continue to loom and the corporate watchdog investigates supermarket pricing, the spotlight has been trained on supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths this year.
The Australian National Dictionary Centre, based at the Australian National University, has picked the word ‘Colesworth’ as the 2024 Word of the Year, describing the perceived duopoly of Australia’s supermarket retailers.
Mark Gwynn, a senior researcher at the Australian National Dictionary Centre, said it selected the winning word or expression based on what had dominated the national conversation.
“What we’re looking for is something that kind of sums up the year, a word that’s been used or relating to the concerns of Australians,” he said.
“With the cost-of-living pressures that people are still obviously dealing with, those pressures [and] inflation is still an issue for Australians this year as it was last year.”
Australian National Dictionary Centre senior researcher Mark Gwynn says ‘Colesworth’ is mostly used derogatorily. (ABC News: Charlie McLean)
The word is not an endearment or a fond nickname either, reflecting people’s changing attitudes towards the retailers.
“This combination has seen the ‘Colesworth’ used in a fairly derogatory way,” Mr Gwynn said.
“[Coles and Woolworths] share the lion’s share of the market and can keep prices fairly high, as well as get up to some fairly, what we would [consider], … dodgy practices,” he said.
While the word has been around for years, Mr Gwynn said its use had spiked this year.
Earlier this year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission took legal action against Coles and Woolworths for allegedly breaching consumer law.
The watchdog claims hundreds of thousands of products used in discount promotions were misleading.
“People started to become more cynical with both the leading supermarkets in Australia, because they could see they were making large profits – but prices were going up, [and] the spending power of Australians individually was going down,” Mr Gwynn said.
Raygun’s performance made it on the shortlist
‘Breaking’ was shortlisted for Word of the Year after Australian b-girl Rachael Gunn, or Raygun, become a worldwide phenomenon at the Paris Olympics. (Getty Images: Ezra Shaw)
The shortlisted words have covered a range of topics including the climate, sport, and tax.
The word ‘breaking’ – another term for breakdancing to hip-hop music — was a top contender, inspired by the viral performance of Australian athlete Rachel Gunn, or Raygun, at the Paris Olympics.
“[Raygun] is probably the most famous breaker in the world at the moment, she certainly set the world on fire with her routine at the Paris Olympics,” Mr Gwynn said.
Other words shortlisted on the 2024 Word of the Year list include:
- Climate trigger: The requirement for a new development to be assessed under environmental protection legislation if it has an unacceptable impact on climate.
- Ute tax: A derogatory term for the new fuel efficiency standard. Designed to lower CO2 emissions in new cars sold in the Australian market, opposition to the changes have labelled it a tax on the family car.
- YIMBY: A person who supports new development in the area where they live (from ‘yes in my back yard’). This riposte to the NIMBYs (‘not in my back yard”)has increased in Australian usage recently as the housing crisis prompts calls for more high-density housing in Australian cities.
Last year ‘Matilda’ was the centre’s Word of the Year, given the soaring popularity of the Australian women’s soccer team.
In 2022 it was ‘teal‘, in reference to the independent candidates who unseated mostly male Liberal MPs in the federal election, and in 2021 it was ‘strollout‘, the term used to describe the pace at which vaccines were rolled out across the country.
The Oxford University Press has narrowed the shortlist for its 2024 Word of the Year to six words, including ‘demure’, ‘brainrot’ and ‘slop’.
Collins Dictionary declared ‘brat’ as its 2024 Word of the Year — referring to a cultural movement inspired by the album title of Charli XCX.
