“I don't approve of political jokes. I've seen too many of them get elected.” I don’t know who authored this thought-provoking one-liner. I enjoy watching political jokers making empty promises and tall claims and thus amusing (fooling) the electorate. I come across numerous witty remarksand jokes about politicians during this election season and enjoy sharing them with friends as we all need relief from stress. Here is one of the witty remarks: Politicians and diapers have one thing in common: they should both be changed regularly… and for the same reason.
The 2019 Lob Sabha elections are just around the corner. Election campaigns are in full swing. Everyone is excited about going to the polls. The media is awash with news and stories about political parties, manifestoes, candidates, constituencies, election frauds, election forecast, etc. Social networking sites are abuzz with memes and jokes about different politicians and parties. Readers, listeners and watchers of mainstream and social media are bombarded with election lingo which is defined as words and phrases associated with voting and elections. As social media has given an opportunity to everyone to express their views freely many use election jargon in a creative way and some use in an unacceptable manner. Some of the words/phrases are foreign-sounding for learners of English. A couple of readers of this column requested me to discuss election lingo in the column. Many thanks for your suggestion, dear readers.
Here are some useful election words and phrases, their meanings and how they are used in sentences:
‘To go to the polls’means to vote in an election. It is incorrect to use the phrase “to go to the polls” without the definite article “the”. In many Indian newspapers, we come across the phrase “to go to polls” but native speakers of English use “to go to the polls”. There is no match for the query “go to polls” in the British National Corpus but for the query “go to the polls” there are 17 matches.
Here are examples of how the phrase is used in sentences:
‘To cast a ballot’ is the same as ‘to cast a vote’. The second phrase ‘to cast a vote’ is more commonly used in British English. The past tense of ‘cast’ is also ‘cast’. What is the origin of the word ‘ballot’? It is an Italian word and it refers to a small ball used to record decisions made by voters. It also refers to a piece of paper used in secret voting. After the introduction of voting machines, the term ‘ballot’ is not used much in India.
What is the meaning of the term “blackball”? It means to reject a candidate who aspires to become a member of a club or a group by voting against the person.
‘Incumbency’ means the holding of an office at a particular period. If voters are not happy with those who are currently in power, they decide to vote against the incumbent elected representatives. This is called ‘anti-incumbency mood’ or ‘anti-incumbency vote’.
‘Campaign trail’ refers to a series of planned events in different places taken part by a politician who wants to be elected.
What is the meaning of ‘swing seat’? It refers to a constituency where the incumbent elected representative has only a small majority. The other term used to mean ‘swing seat’ is ‘marginal seat’. It is the opposite of ‘safe seat’.
A ‘dark horse’ is a candidate who is not well known but unexpectedly wins an election. The term is also used to refer to someone surprises others with their skills or talents and wins a competition.
“If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.”—Mark Twain