THE VOICE REFERENDUM:
Leading lexicographers from around the world are convening in an online meeting later today to approve the inclusion of a new word in English-language dictionaries as they are updated and republished.
A spokesperson for the International Journal of Lexicography based at Oxford University in the UK, Professor Cilla Bull, said the meeting had been called following requests from Australian-based practitioners who had read today’s edition of News Crap Australia’s Sydney turdbloid The Sunday Telegraph.
“I have since had the relevant Tele story emailed to me and I can see why today’s meeting is needed,” Professor Bull said.
The story in question by the paper’s national political editor James Campbell claims polling casts doubt on assertions that an overwhelming majority of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders support a “yes” vote in next Saturday’s referendum on a First Nations’ voice to parliament. (below)
“The amazing thing about the front-page story – well one of the amazing things – is that it is supposedly based on polling by the ‘no’ campaign,” Professor Bull said.
“Yet the only figures cited are from three ‘no’ campaign polls between February and May this year that actually do show majority support within those communities, albeit falling over the three polls and never at the higher levels claimed by the ‘yes’ campaign.
“The story also notes that no further polls testing indigenous support have been undertaken by the ‘no’ campaign since May.
“Now I may be just a humble British lexicographer but I do know that any psephologist worth their salt would – how can I put this politely? – wipe their arse with this story.
“Even I know that you can’t draw definitive conclusions about community views today from polls taken six months ago. That is unless you wanted to be very mischievous and vindictively implant disinformation in readers’ minds, and surely that wouldn’t be allowed to happen in a mainstream newspaper.”
Professor Bull said the upshot of the story had been a request for an international online meeting of lexicographers to approve the new word “psefoologist”.
“It’s a variant of psephologist but describes someone who has been fooled by malignant forces determined to misrepresent polling data,” she said.
“We think it’s perfect for the likes of Mr Campbell because someone at the ‘no’ campaign has clearly whispered in his ear and convinced him that the old polls are worth the front-page coverage they’ve been given.
“Oh, yes, I did say earlier that there were other elements I found amazing in the Tele story with the main one being how can such an easily fooled unthinking right-wing propagandist like Mr Campbell gain a job in any media outlet, let alone the title ‘national political editor’?” Professor Bull said.
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