Australian ballot
n.— «An Australian ballot/closed vote followed and the tally was 50-20 in favor of tabling the articles.…While many lawmakers, and other interested parties, are paying close attention to whether school budgets are passed, others are watching whether communities choose what is known as Australian balloting over traditional floor discussion and votes.» —“Town Meeting Day—early roundup” by Shay Totten, Christian Avard Vermont Guardian (Winooski, Vermont) Mar. 6, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
John in Tucson, Arizona, remembers his grandfather from Sharon, Vermont, saying possessives such as hisn, hern, yourn, and ourn, as in Those cattle are hisn or That house is hern. These archaic forms go back to Middle English, shaped by analogy with...
How do social media algorithms shape the way we communicate? A new book argues that the competition for clicks is changing the way we speak and write, from the so-called “YouTube accent” to the surprising evolution of the word preppy. Also: A...