Voting for the Word of the Year 2025 is underway: These are the candidates

The question is: Who or what will succeed "Renaturation", the Word of the Year 2024. On Friday, the Society for Austrian German (GSÖD) published the list of candidate words competing for the Word of the Year, the Non-Word, the Youth Word, as well as the Saying and Non-Saying of the Year. It could indeed get quite animalistic, as one of the candidates for the Word of the Year is "Elk Emil". Voting is open until December 1st on oewort.at.

Word of the Year 2025: "Elk Emil" and "Candy Coalition" in the Running

Besides the elk, which gained some media fame with its summer journey through Lower and Upper Austria, there are "Achter-Sepp" (according to the jury, a fun expression by the opposition for NEOS State Secretary Sepp Schellhorn due to his alleged preference for an A8 Audi as a service vehicle instead of an A6; Schellhorn denies this, note), the "Buddha of Vienna" ("Spiegel" title for VP Chancellor Christian Stocker) or the "Candy Coalition" (for the coalition of ÖVP, SPÖ, and NEOS in this country) up for selection.

Also, "wögern" (after ÖVP club chairman August Wöginger; helping someone to a job for which they are not qualified and getting away with it unpunished) and other terms are up for selection.

"Extraction" or "Body of the People" as Choices for Non-Word of the Year

For the non-word, the range of selectable terms extends from "traffic light coalition" (simply incorrect term for the domestic government, as two of the three involved parties do not have traffic light colors) to "removal" (euphemistic term for the killing of unwanted wild animals) to "national body" (expression used by the NSDAP and now also part of the vocabulary of FPÖ chairman Herbert Kickl). Among others, "deregulation" (a concealing term that actually aims to reduce the cost of labor at the expense of the protection level of workers) is also up for selection.

Also voting for Youth Word, Phrase, and Non-Phrase of the Year

Among the candidates for the Youth Word of the Year are "Checks" ("Do you understand?", "Got it?", "Do you get it?"), "speak!" ("Louder!", "Everyone should hear it!") or "tuff/tough" ("Cool", "awesome"). A possible Phrase of the Year comes from the Frenchwoman Gisèle Pelicot, who was drugged and raped by her husband for almost ten years: "The shame must change sides," she said, meaning that the perpetrators must be ashamed, not the victims. Another was coined by Chancellor Stocker, when he said: "A compromise is not a defeat, but a success for the whole country."

The former record goal scorer of the Austrian national football team, Toni Polster, might have provided the Non-Phrase of the Year by saying after the 10:0 victory against San Marino: "This is a selection of pizza bakers, but certainly not a national team." However, he competes with FPÖ chairman Herbert Kickl, who said about the Archbishop of Salzburg, Franz Lackner: "We will deport him when he comes out of his monastery walls." Lackner had warned against the appropriation and instrumentalization of religion by party politics.

The jury will meet on December 1st to determine the winners in all categories. The results will be published in the following days.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.