I've been struck by the lack of election-related 2024 Words of the Year from the English dictionaries (for a list, see November's newsletter). So I am here to repair that with my US-to-UK Word of the Year:
landslide
...which was much-used in its figurative sense to describe the result of the UK election that ended 14 years of Conservative government.
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| some landslide headlines in UK media |
Here's how it it's been showing up in British news sources:
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| landslide in UK sources in the NOW corpus |
Though the Google Books data is not as up-to-date, it shows a general increase in the term in BrE, starting at the turn of the 20th century, but speeding up from the 1980s. (It's possible that has something to do with the 1975 hit song "Landslide" by the Anglo-American band Fleetwood Mac.) I'm not too worried about the dip in the 2000s. Most words I look up in Google ngrams dip in the 2000s for some reason.
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| landslide in UK publications in Google Books |
The first OED citation for landslide (which it marks as "Originally U.S.") is from 1822; early citations are hyphenated, but the hyphen was soon lost. (That OED entry was updated in 2021.) The BrE word landslip, by comparison, dates back to at least the 1670s. While the OED marks landslip as 'also figurative' none of its examples are figurative uses (but that entry has not been updated since 1901; it is irregularly hyphenated into the 19th century). Here are the definitions:
landslide 1. The sliding down or subsidence of a large mass of earth, rock, etc.; a landslip; esp. a collapse of earth or rock from a mountain or cliff. Also figurative. 2. An overwhelming majority of votes for one party or candidate in an election; a victory achieved with such a majority.
landslip The sliding down of a mass of land on a mountain or cliff side; land which has so fallen. Also figurative and attributive.
In the last one there, the headline says landslip, but landslide is in the first line of the article.
To me, landslide sounds much bigger than landslip, and that might be reflected in the large in the former definition. Around here in the South of England, landslips occasionally close down rail travel between Brighton and London. In that case, it'll be that some earth has washed down from the slopes along the (BrE) railway line/(AmE) train tracks. There, I don't tend to hear landslide, and sure enough, those headlines tend to be about landslips.
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| landslide in GloWbE corpus |
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ReplyDeleteWell. I'm a BrE speaker in my 50s and "landslide" has been part of my vocabulary (in both literal and figurative senses) for as long as I can remember. No way would I have guessed it might be a contender for a US-to-UK word at all, let alone word of the year!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rob, above. There was a Labour landslide back in the 1990s, and there have been various Tory landslides during my lifetime, too, alas. Sorry, Lynne, but this is really not a new, or even new-ish, word in BrE, including in the literal sense!
ReplyDeleteNo need to apologise, there has never been a requirement for SbaCL WotYs to be new in the year. It has to be an Americanism that 'made a splash' in the UK in the year. You can see the ripples of the splash in the corpus numbers.
DeleteThere was a Labour landslide in 1945. When I checked on Newspapers.com, all the references are much later so it seems to be true that the expression wasn't used at the time.
ReplyDeleteUseful! Thanks, BillS!
DeleteI feel like here in the US landslide is largely used in the political sense with mudslide often used in the literal sense instead.
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ReplyDeleteI’m American, but I’ve been exposed to enough British media that I don’t often get to experience a BrE word for the very first time anymore. “Landslip”, however, felt utterly unfamiliar! At least in the rail example you gave, I’d have called that a “washout”.
ReplyDeleteA few weeks before the U.S. "mid-term" election in 2026, I have noticed that - at least on TwiXter - the "landslide" metaphor has been displaced (swept away?) by "tsunami".
ReplyDeleteThis appears to have evolved from the concept of a "wave" election (in this case, a "blue wave", referring to the color-code for the Democratic party), to mean an election having a general trend of much-increased votes based on party, as opposed to a scattering of results based on the merits of individual candidates (which is fairly common in American politics). "Tsunami", therefore, means a VERY large, and VERY widespread, increase in votes based on party.
If "tsunami" - or, even, the less extraordinary "wave" - catches on, there would still be a role for the word "landslide" to refer to an overwhelming electoral victory for any INDIVIDUAL candidate. For example, in a U.S. presidential election, it is possible for there to be a tremendous (landslide) victory for the president, but without any corresponding effects (traditionally called "coattails") in the election results that same year for members of Congress.