Macquarie defines “mansplain” as follows:
“verb (t) Colloquial (humorous) (of a man) to explain (something) to a woman, in a way that is patronising because it assumes that a woman will be ignorant of the subject matter. [MAN + (EX)PLAIN with s inserted to create a pronunciation link with explain.”
The 2014 Word of the Year committee, which includes Fairfax columnist John Birmingham, University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence and arts editor of news website The Conversation Catriona Menzies-Pike, felt that it was a worthy winner of word of the year.
The committee said that it was “a much needed word and it was a clever coinage which captured neatly the concept of the patronising explanation offered only too frequently by some men to women”.
Hear hear, comes the deafening cheer of women tired of being told things by men.
The Macquarie Dictionary also gave an honourable mention to another word that has captured the times we live in: binge watching (pertaining to watching all of Breaking Bad in one weekend, for example) and one dishonourable one, selfie stick (otherwise known as the rod of narcissism).
Our predictions for what might make it next round? Fleek (on point, i.e. your look is fleek today) and basic (unoriginal, or totally mainstream) and bae (‘before anyone else’, a fairly nauseating term of affection).
