By 3 News online staff
A word that came to prominence in the wake of the February quake – "munted" – has been voted Word of the Year by readers of the popular blog website Public Address.
It fought off competition from "ghost chips", "Occupy" and the ubiquitous "nek minnit", as well as several other quake-related terms like "#eqnz", "liquefaction" and "red-stickered".
"The word 'munted' isn’t new," says Public Address founder and Hard News blogger Russell Brown, "But it felt like this was the year it found its destiny.
"'Munted', in spirit and in sound, was the natural word for what happened to parts of Christchurch in the February earthquake. And when Mayor Bob Parker told journalists, 'Our main sewer trunk is seriously munted. I believe that is the technical term,' that destiny was settled."
Mr Brown says the race was close, with "munted" only beating "nek minnit" by a few votes of the hundreds cast.
The appearance on the list of "ghost chips" would please the NZTA, says Mr Brown.
"Any public service campaign aims to get that degree of currency – and our readers aren’t even in the ad’s target demographic."
The list was meant to be embargoed until today, but it appears Mr Brown posted it on the Public Address website last night, prompting one reader to say the embargo was "munted".
Here's the full top 10:
1. munted
2. nek minnit
3. ghost chips
4. = #eqnz
= Occupy
6. liquefaction
7. Arab Spring
8. 99%
9. fuckeulogy
10. red-stickered
3 News