STRANGE POLITICS: Enough to drive a man to drinking a shoey

This year's word of the year is a national disgrace write Chris Calcino

Somehow "shoey" was overlooked as Australia's word of the year, beaten by a two-word blight on the Australian lexicon. Picture: Digitally altered

A NATIONAL disgrace. An absolute dishonour to the Australian lexicon. Delicious, yes. The most important part of every election, no doubt. But seriously, we can do better.

Cue the "snag" puns: Australia has a new word of the year. The Australian National Dictionary Centre crowned the staple election day meal, the democracy sausage, the word of 2016.

"Arguably, the democracy sausage has been one of the best things to come out of a tumultuous year in politics and political campaigning," the centre's director Dr Amanda Laugesen explained.

"Its use was also boosted by a controversial incident where Opposition Leader Bill Shorten - who noted his sausage sandwich was 'the taste of democracy' - ate his sausage from the middle."

Alright, it was a pretty big thing at the Federal Election.

Every politician and his dog wanted to be seen devouring a tube of questionable meat product wrapped in cheap, sauce-dolloped white bread, even if they (here's looking at you, Bill) were clueless about the proper directional eating etiquette.

But can anyone really argue that democracy sausage is not, in fact, two words? Not even a compound word. Were a hyphen thrown in there like a snag between the upturned edges of sliced white, there would be no issue.

But here we are in 2016, when literacy levels are plummeting to an embarrassing low and the organisation in charge of the nation's lexicographical research comes up with this howler.

It is not as though we were lacking for alternatives.

Smashed avo made the shortlist, albeit as another hopeless, two-word blight on the competition. The cafe breakfast favourite shot to fame after mature-age columnist Bernard Salt launched into a tirade suggesting young Aussies could afford a house if they stopped forking out for avocado on toast.

Salt later claimed it was a parody about the middle-aged, but the outrage that followed was arguably funnier than the article.

All the other nominations except Australia's anti-monarchical answer to the Brexit referendum, Ausexit, and the decidedly American term deplorables, consisted of two words with nary a hyphen between the lot. Except for one shining hope. Shoey.

A bloody magnificent word referring to the celebratory act of splashing a good lick of booze into a shoe and slugging it down with wild, alcoholic abandon.

Australian Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo championed the cause during his post-race celebrations, ingesting God knows how many toenail flakes and gallons of boot sweat along with his top-shelf champagne.

Even scientist and radio personality Dr Karl Kruszelnicki gave it a go in a Triple J Hottest 100 promotional video.

Let's just go mad with it next year. Who cares, the whole thing has become a farce. If we can get a win for Goon of Fortune, the drinking game where boozehounds peg cask wine to a Hills Hoist and give it a spin to see who has to glug away, I shall rescind every last drop of non-hyphenated indignation.

Originally published as STRANGE POLITICS: Enough to drive a man to drinking a shoey