An Australian dictionary has chosen ‘milkshake duck’ as its word of the year

An Australian dictionary has chosen ‘milkshake duck’ as its word of the year

The Macquarie Dictionary of Australia has just announced its word of the year, and it might not be one you know.

So what word did the dictionary’s committee decide has “captured what 2017 has been about”?

So what is a milkshake duck?

It refers to someone who is initially well-loved, before falling from grace, usually after something unsavoury is revealed about them, for example being sexist or racist, or having a not so wholesome past.

The phrase stems from a tweet posted way back in 2016.

And now that it’s gone from obscure meme culture reference to mainstream term with a dictionary definition, here’s how to use it in a sentence.

It can be a noun – for example: Ken Bone was one of the first milkshake ducks.

He was the red jumper-wearing undecided voter made famous during the presidential debates. This was before his very not safe for work Reddit commenting history was discovered.

Alternatively, milkshake duck can be used as a verb. The family of Keaton Jones were milkshake ducked after a video of the young boy talking about being bullied went viral at the end of last year.

Celebrities like Rihanna deleted social media posts praising him after pictures surfaced of the boy and his family posing with confederate flags. The original video, with its 22 million views, has now been deleted by his mother.

It’s inevitable in this day and age. As sure as a viral star will rise, they will almost certainly be found to be problematic.

So now we have a word for that feeling when a new fave disappoints us all.

Wait, shouldn’t that be two words?

It seems milkshake duck has itself been milkshake ducked. It was only a matter of time.

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