Milkshake Duck Chosen As Word Of The Year By Australian Dictionary ‘Macquarie’

The word was first used by a Twitter user in 2016

Published: January 16, 2018 2:56 PM IST

By India.com Buzz Desk

Milkshake Duck Chosen As Word Of The Year By Australian Dictionary 'Macquarie'

From ‘brain fart’ to ‘awesomesauce’ and from ‘Youthquake’ to ‘Mansplaining’, several new words have been added to the dictionaries in the past few years. The origin of most of the bizarre new additions to the dictionaries can be traced back to the social media. Millenials sometimes communicate and create their own words to explain certain situations, which then goes on to become viral. The latest example of this is ‘Milkshake Duck’ that has been announced as the word of the year. The Macquarie Dictionary of Australia has chosen Milkshake Duck as the word of the year as it “captured what 2017 has been about”. Last year’s (2016) word was ‘fake news’. The Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year contest has for long been open to constructions of two or more words. But what exactly is a Milkshake Duck?

‘Milkshake Duck’ is defined by the Macquarie Dictionary as “a person who is initially viewed positively by the media but is then discovered to have something questionable about them which causes a sharp decline in their popularity”. Media. too, is too broad a prism. Milkshake Ducks are largely made and unmade on social media. The word was originally coined by @pixelatedboat in 2016. The 2016 tweet read: “The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you the duck is racist.” Australia said that most people had never heard of the term, which originated from the 2016 @pixelatedboat tweet.

Here is the 2016 tweet which first uses the word ‘Milkshake Duck’:

The internet offers many such instances of ‘Milkshake Ducks’. For instance, Ken Bone briefly became a favourite of social media after asking a question during a debate at last year’s US presidential election. But his popularity fell as quickly as it rose when Reddit users dug through his past and found that he had occasionally commented on erotic subreddits including one called “preggoporn,” and argued that the killing of Trayvon Martin was “justified”. Another example of this is when Keaton Jones – a young boy in Tennessee, became a viral hit for tearfully denouncing his bullies. However, photographs of Keaton and his mother holding the Confederate flag were soon revealed, and his popularity nosedived. Celebrities, including Rihanna, who has tweeted in support of the boy, deleted their tweets.

Here is the tweet by Macquarie Dictionary:

“Milkshake duck stood out as being a much-needed term to describe something we are seeing more and more of, not just on the internet but now across all types of media,” said the committee in a statement. Even if you don’t know the word, you know the phenomenon, added the committee. They also opined that Milkshake Duck plays to the simultaneous desire to bring someone down and the hope that they won’t be brought down. This, reportedly, was what 2017 was all about. ” There is a hint of a tall poppy syndrome in there, which we always thought was a uniquely Australian trait, but has been amplified through the internet and become universalised,” said the committee. The runner-up word in the competition for the word of the year was ‘framily’. This word refers to a group of people not related by blood but who constitute an intimate network. Another runner-up word was ‘endling’, which means the last surviving member of a species.

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